Forms: 5 bithumen, bethyn, (betune), 6 betumen, 7 bitamen, bitum(e, bittumen, bytumen, 6– bitumen. [a. L. bitūmen (stem bitūmin-). Cf. F. and It. bitume, Pg. betume, Pr. betum, Sp. betun, from which some of the obs. Eng. forms were taken.]
1. Originally, a kind of mineral pitch found in Palestine and Babylon, used as mortar, etc. The same as asphalt, mineral pitch, Jew’s pitch, Bitumen judaicum.
1460. Capgrave, Chron., 30. A vessel of wykyris, filled the joyntis with tow erde, cleped bithumen.
1480. Caxton, Ovid’s Met., XV. iv. The … bethyn & sulphur brennyng.
1577. J. Frampton, Joyf. Newes, 6. Betumen which is a kind of Pitch.
1601. Holland, Pliny, I. 101. Asphaltites, or the lake of Sodom … bringeth forth nothing but Bitumen.
1609. Bible (Douay), Gen. vi. 14. Thou … shalt pitch it [the arke] within, and without with bitume.
1610. Holland, Camden’s Brit., I. 519. Coles, being of the nature of hardned Bitamen.
1656. Blount, Glossogr., Bitume, a kind of clay or slime naturally clammy, like pitch, growing in some Countries of Asia.
1817. Byron, Manfred, I. i. 90. The lakes of bitumen Rise boilingly higher.
1849. Grote, Greece, II. lxx. (1862), VI. 239. [The Wall of Media] was of bricks cemented with bitumen.
2. In modern scientific use, the generic name of certain mineral inflammable substances, native hydrocarbons more or less oxygenated, liquid, semi-solid, and solid, including naphtha, petroleum, asphalt, etc. Elastic bitumen: mineral caoutchouc or Elaterite.
1605. Timme, Quersit., I. xiii. 52. There are also manie kindes of … bitumen.
1635. Swan, Spec. M., vi. (1643), 297. Naphtha, is a liquid Bitume.
1677. Moxon, Mech. Exerc. (1703), 243. Morter used … at Rome … called Maltha, from a kind of Bitumen Dug there.
1835. Penny Cycl., IV. 473/2. Elastic bitumen is soft and elastic like caoutchouc.
1857. Page, Adv. Text-bk. Geol., xx. (1876), 441. The bitumens—naphtha, petroleum, asphalt—have been long known and used in the arts.
3. A pigment prepared from asphalt.
1855. J. Edwards, Paint. in Oil, 26. Bitumen … is Asphaltum ground in strong drying oil … for the painter’s use.
† 4. Used by Turner, for the sap of the birch-tree.
1551. Turner, Herbal (1568), F v b. The frenche men seth out of it a certain iuce or suc otherwise called bitumen.
5. attrib.
1816. Shelley, Alastor, 85. Bitumen lakes.
1837. Carlyle, Fr. Rev., III. III. i. 150. Here lay the bitumen stratum, there the brimstone one.
