Also liquid amber. [a. mod.L. liquidambar (in Renou, 1615), app. irreg. f. L. liquid-us LIQUID + med.L. ambar AMBER.]
1. A resinous gum that exudes from the bark of the tree Liquidambar styraciflua. Called also copalm balsam.
1598. Florio, Liquidambro, liquid amber.
1616. Bullokar, Liquid Amber. A sweete Rosin brought from the West Indies, comfortable to the braine.
1657. Tomlinson, Renou’s Disp., IV. II. ix. 673. Liquid Amber is a certain oleous Rosine … called from its suaveolence, Liquid Amber, or Oyl of Amber [orig. Liquidambar dictum,… quasi ambarum liquidum].
1727–41. Chambers, Cycl., s.v. Amber, Liquid Amber, is a kind of native balsam, or resin, like turpentine; of a pleasant smell, somewhat like ambergris.
2. Bot. A genus of trees, N.O. Hamamelideæ, consisting of two species, L. orientalis of Asia Minor (which yields the balsam known as liquid storax), and L. styraciflua, the Sweet-gum Tree of N. America; a tree of this genus.
1843. Prescott, Mexico (1854), 2. The rich foliage of the liquid-amber tree.
1846. W. D. Cooley, Maritime & Inl. Discov., III. V. xviii. 273. The eastern slope of the Cordilleras of Mexico, covered with thick forests of liquidambar.
1881. Gard. Chron., No. 412. 652. Some young Liquidambars.
1884. E. Eggleston, in Century Mag., XXVII. Jan., 446/2. Carts with truck wheels sawed from the liquid-amber or sweet-gum tree.
