gutta percha

Noun

gutta-percha (countable and uncountable, plural gutta-perchas)

1. An inelastic natural latex, produced from the sap of several tropical trees of the genera Palaquium and Payena.
   • Resin, pitch, sealing-wax, caoutchouc, sulphur, gutta-percha, and generally all bodies commonly termed resinous, besides a great variety of others, will be found to acquire, after friction, the power of attracting light bodies, and hence will be said, according to a limitation of terms already...1855, William Somerville Orr, Orr's Circle of the Sciences, page 205