nacre

Estimated CEFR level: C2 — Proficiency

Estimated from word frequency; not an official CEFR classification.

Definition

noun the iridescent internal layer of a mollusk shell

Etymology

Borrowed from Middle French nacre, from Medieval Latin nacchara, ultimately derived from Arabic نَقَّارَة (naqqāra). Doublet of nagara, nagada, and naqareh. Also present in nacarat.

In classic literature

He is one of the late French romanticists, that high-soaring and heaven-aspiring band of artists, like Delacroix and Berlioz, who in their inmost nacres are sick and incurable, and who are all fanatics of expression, and virtuosos through and through.... Who, in sooth, was the first intelligent follower of Wagner? — Ecce Homo: Complete Works, Volume Seventeen, Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
On a little table of dark perfumed wood thickly incrusted with nacre, a present from Lady Radley, his guardian’s wife, a pretty professional invalid, who had spent the preceding winter in Cairo, was lying a note from Lord Henry, and beside it was a book bound in yellow paper, the cover slightly torn and the edges soiled. — The Picture of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde

Synonyms

mother-of-pearl

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nacre

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In classic literature

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