alabaster

Meanings

1. A fine-grained white or lightly-tinted variety of gypsum, used ornamentally.
2. A variety of calcite, translucent and sometimes banded.
3. A sculpture executed in alabaster.
4. An off-white color, like that of alabaster.

1. Made of alabaster.
2. Resembling alabaster; white, pale, smooth, translucent.

1. A city in Shelby County, Alabama, United States.

Etymology

From Middle English alabastre, from Old French alabastre, from Latin alabaster (“box for perfumes or unguents”), from Ancient Greek ἀλάβαστρος (alábastros), from earlier ἀλάβαστος (alábastos, “vase without handles for storing perfumes”). This may further derive from Egyptian ꜥj-r-bꜣstjt (“vessel of the Egyptian goddess Bast”). 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).