amber
noun · adjective
Simple meaning
A deep golden-yellow color.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
amberSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈæmbɚ
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
A deep golden-yellow color.
A yellow-orange colour.
A hard yellowish to brownish translucent fossil resin; used for jewelry
uncountable
Hesitance to proceed, or limited approval to proceed; an amber light.
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.
BritishAustralia
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.
adjective
Of a brownish yellow colour, like that of most amber.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- B1 · Intermediate
- Frequency
- Common
- Typical Use
- Everyday English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: a deep golden-yellow color.
Used this way, amber is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Moderate
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Matter-of-fact
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use amber
- “An amber light illuminated the room.”noun
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
Plant having basal grasslike leaves and a narrow open cluster of starlike yellowish-orange flowers atop a leafless stalk.
More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
Synonyms
Sense: deep golden-yellow color
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.