Definizione monolingua

alabaster

alabaster (usually uncountable; plural alabasters)

1. A fine-grained white or lightly-tinted variety of gypsum, used ornamentally.
   • c. 1596, William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice, Act I, Scene I, lines 89-90

     Why should a man, whose blood is warm within,

     Sit like his grandsire cut in alabaster?

   • 1867 Dante Alghieri, The Divine Comedy, Paradiso, Canto XV, lines 22-23 (translated by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow)

     Nor was the flame dissevered from its ribbon

     But like a radiant fillet ran along

     So that fire seemed it behind alabaster.

   • 1915, The New York Times, ""Egyptian Antiquities for Metropolitan"" (pdf), 15 May

     One of the striking relics found at the tomb, was a Canopic portrait head of Queen Tii, made entirely of alabaster except the eyes and eyebrows, which were inlaid lapis lazuli and osidian.

2. (historical) A variety of calcite, translucent and sometimes banded.

alabaster (not comparable)

1. Made of alabaster

   The crown is stored in an alabaster box with an onyx handle and a gold lock.

2. Resembling alabaster: white, pale, translucent.

   An ominous alabaster fog settled in the valley.

Definizione dizionario alabaster

alabastro

alabastrino

Altri significati:

Resembling alabaster: white, pale, translucent.

Made of alabaster

Made of alabaster.

variety of gypsum

(historical) A variety of calcite, translucent and sometimes banded.

A fine-grained white or lightly-tinted variety of gypsum, used ornamentally.