alabaster

Meanings

Noun

• A fine-grained white or lightly-tinted variety of gypsum, used ornamentally.
• A variety of calcite, translucent and sometimes banded.
• An off-white colour, like that of alabaster.

Adjective

• Made of alabaster.
• Resembling alabaster: white, pale, translucent.

Origin

• From Middle English alabastre, from Old French alabastre, from Latin alabaster ("box for perfume made of alabaster"), from Ancient Greek ἀλάβαστρος, from earlier ἀλάβαστος. This may further derive from Egyptian ꜥj-r-bꜣstjt. The Latin suffix -aster is unrelated, but may have influenced the spelling of the borrowing from Ancient Greek (whence a direct loan could have been rendered as *alabastrus).