ambers

Noun

amber (countable and uncountable, plural ambers)

1. (obsolete) Ambergris, the waxy product of the sperm whale.
   • Ambre is hote and drye […] Some say that it is the sparme of a whale.1526, The Grete Herball
   1. (obsolete) Formerly thought to be the product of a plant.
      • The leaves of the foreſt were loaded with manna, pure amber dropped from every bough, honey diſtilled from the rifted rock, and the humming bee, drunk with joy, ſtrayed from flower to flower, forgetful of his burſting cells.1769, Firishta, translated by Alexander Dow, Tales translated from the Persian of Inatulla of Delhi, volume I, Dublin: P. and W. Wilson et al., page iv
2. A hard, generally yellow to brown translucent or transparent fossil resin from extinct coniferous trees of the pine genus, used for jewellery, decoration and later dissolved as a binder in varnishes. One variety, blue amber, appears blue rather than yellow under direct sunlight.
   • With scarfs and fans and double change of bravery,
     With amber bracelets, beads, and all this knavery.c. 1590–1592 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Taming of the Shrew”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward]...
3. A yellow-orange colour.
   • And I looked, and, behold, a whirlwind came out of the north, a great cloud, and a fire infolding itself, and a brightness was about it, and out of the midst thereof as the colour of amber, out of the midst of the fire.1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Ezekiel 1:4
4. (Australia, Commonwealth, UK) The intermediate light in a set of three traffic lights, which when illuminated indicates that drivers should stop when safe to do so. See also yellow light.
   • While earlier controllers provided concurrent ambers, present practice is to indicate a minimum intergreen period of 4 s.1974, Traffic Planning and Engineering, page 366

   Synonyms:

   yellow

5. The stop codon (nucleotide triplet) "UAG", or a mutant which has this stop codon at a premature place in its DNA sequence.
   • an amber codon, an amber mutation, an amber suppressor

See all 18 meanings of amber