Definition of "ambergris" noun usually uncountable , plural ambergrises
A solid , waxy , flammable substance of a dull grey or blackish color , produced in the intestines of the sperm whale . It is used in perfumes . quotations examples
Quotations Your onely way to make a good pomander , is this. Take an ownce of the pureſt garden mould , clenſed and ſteeped ſeauen daies in change of motherleſſe roſe water , then take the beſt Labdanum , Benioine , both Storaxes , amber greece , and Ciuet , and muſke , incorporate them together , and work them into what form you pleaſe ; this, if your breath bee not to valiant , will make you ſmell as ſweete as my Ladies dogge .
1607, [attributed to Thomas Tomkis], Lingva: Or The Combat of the Tongue, and the Five Senses for Superiority. A Pleasant Comœdie., London: Printed by G[eorge] Eld, for Simon Waterson, act IV, scene iii
And as for the other whale , why , I ’ll agree to get more oil by chopping up and trying out these three masts of ours , than he ’ll get from that bundle of bones ; though , now that I think of it, it may contain something worth a good deal more than oil ; yes , ambergris
1851 November 14, Herman Melville, Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley