amber

noun ambers

1. countable, obsolete, uncountable Ambergris, the waxy product of the sperm whale. Ambre is hote and drye […] Some say that it is the sparme of a whale.
2. countable, obsolete, uncountable 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.
3. countable, uncountable 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.
4. countable, uncountable 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.
5. Australia, Commonwealth, UK, countable, uncountable 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.

   Similar: yellow

6. countable, uncountable 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
7. uncountable Hesitance to proceed, or limited approval to proceed; an amber light. […] in response to the actions I just described, business was given the green light, and now we seem to be on amber.

Similar: ambergris · Opposite: red, green

adjective more amber · most amber

1. Of a brownish yellow colour, like that of most amber. They all moved safely through the first green and then the second, but when the third light turned amber Jack's taxi was the last to cross the intersection.

verb ambers · ambering · ambered

1. rare, transitive To perfume or flavour with ambergris. ambered wine, an ambered room
2. rare, transitive To preserve in amber. an ambered fly
3. literary, poetic, rare, transitive To cause to take on the yellow colour of amber. For purple mountains majesty; for amber waves of grain.
4. intransitive, literary, poetic, rare To take on the yellow colour of amber. Westward along Lancaster Avenue, among the stone walls and broad driveways of imposing old houses—their lawns dappled with the shade of ambering maples and dusty, bark-peeled sycamores—

proper noun

1. A female given name from English, popular in the 1980s and the 1990s. The youngest daughter of the Marchioness of Summerdown had one of these quaint, pretty names - Amber! - and what a pretty creature she was!
2. A surname of uncertain origin. Amber, the half, generally waltzed round our forwards, and when he secured he passed the ball on to Aspinall.

proper noun Ambar

1. A male given name from Hindi.
2. A city in Rajasthan, India, also known as Amer.

proper noun

1. A river in Derbyshire, England, which joins the River Derwent at Ambergate.

proper noun

1. Synonym of Ambel (“language”).

   Similar: Ambel