Forms: 5 imbergres, 6 ambar-, -ber-gris(e, amber-de-grece, 6–8 amber-greece, 7 amber-greice, ambre-gris, ambragresia, 7–8 ambergrise, -griese, -greese, 7–9 ambergrease, 7– ambergris. Also 7 greece of amber, gris-amber. [a. Fr. ambre gris, ‘gray amber,’ as sometimes transl. To this substance the name AMBER originally belonged; after its extension to the resin, ambre jaune or succin, the amber proper was distinguished as ambre gris, which has become in Eng. its regular name. The spelling variants are due to attempts to explain gris, as grease, Greece (usual in 17th c.), etc.]
A wax-like substance of marbled ashy color, found floating in tropical seas, and as a morbid secretion in the intestines of the sperm-whale. It is odoriferous and used in perfumery; formerly in cookery.
1481–90. Howard Househ. Bks. (1841), 202. Imber-gres j. lb. price xij.d.
1533. Elyot, Cast. Helthe (1539), 70. Confortatiues of the Hart hotte … Ambergrise [etc.].
1542. Boorde, Dyetary, viii. (1870), 249. Perfumed with amber-degrece.
1576. Baker, Gesner’s Jewell of Health, 85/1. Adde both musk and amber greece.
1604. Dekker, Honest Wh., 49. He smells all of Muske and Amber greece.
1612. Drayton, Poly-olb., xx. (1748), 337. Their lips they sweet’ned had with costly ambergrease.
1614. W. Barclay, in James I.’s Counterbl. (Arb.), 116. Is not Ambergreese coastly?
1616. R. C., Times’ Whistle, iii. 978. His beard, perfumde with greece of amber.
1624. B. Jonson, Neptune’s Triumph. Why do you smell of amber-grise, Of which was formed Neptune’s niece?
1654. L’Estrange, Charles I., 136. They perfumed this respect with presenting to [their Majesties] a massive piece of Ambre Gris.
1657. S. Colvil, Whigs Suppl. (1751), 36. Why devils music do not please? What sort of thing is Ambergrease?
1662. H. Stubbe, Ind. Nectar, iii. 45. Spicery (under which I comprise Amber-griese, and Musk).
1671. Milton, P. R., II. 341. In pastry built, or from the spit, or boiled, Gris-amber-steam’d.
1673. Phil. Trans., VIII. 6115. Amber-Greece is not the Scum or Excrement of the Whale, &c. but issues out of the Root of a Tree.
1680. Morden, Geog. Rect. (1685), 407. There is also found … Amber-greice.
1687. Sedley, Bellam., IV. i. Breakfast … upon new laid eggs, ambergrease and gravy.
1711. Shaftesb., Charac. (1737), III. 207. Some wonderful rich dainty, richer than amber-greese.
1712. trans. Pomet’s Hist. Drugs, I. 19. Everybody now rejects Musk and Ambergriese.
1713. Derham, Physico-Theol., IV. iv. 138. A piece of Ambergreece suspended in a pair of scales, losi nothing of its weight in 31/2 days.
c. 1720. Pope, in Swift’s Wks. (1841), I. 837. Praise is like ambergris; a little whiff of it, by snatches, is very agreeable; but when a man holds a whole lump of it to his nose, it is a stink and strikes you down.
1774. Goldsm., Nat. Hist., II. 228. Discovering the manner of preparing ambergrease.
1783. Phil. Trans., LXXIII. 226. Ambergrise, or properly speaking Grey Amber, is a solid, opaque, inflammable substance. Ibid. (1791), LXXXI. 47. I think ambergris most likely to be found in a sickly fish.
1849. Macaulay, Hist. Eng., I. 442. Something had been put into his [Chas. II.] favourite dish of eggs and ambergrease.
1874. Hartwig, Aerial W., ii. 24. Some papers perfumed with a grain of ambergris still retained a strong odour after 40 years.
