☼ Concept Map

''umber'' ▫ᴱᴺ｜Definition｜1st｜20260715204347-00-⌔

umber - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

Noun

umber (countable and uncountable, plural umbers)

  • A brown clay, somewhat darker than ochre, which contains iron and manganese oxides.
    • ✤ umber:
    • ✤ I’ll put myself in poor and mean attire,
      And with a kind of umber smirch my face;
      The like do you; so shall we pass along,
      And never stir assailants.      1
  • Alternative form of umbrere.
  • A grayling.
  • A dusky brown African wading bird (Scopus umbretta) allied to the shoebill and herons; a hamerkop.

Adjective

umber (not comparable)

  • Of a reddish brown colour, like that of the pigment.
    • ✤ Their harps are of the umber shade/That hides the blush of waking day.2

Verb

umber (third-person singular simple present umbers, present participle umbering, simple past and past participle umbered)

  • (transitive) To give a reddish-brown colour to.
    • ✤ Armies o’er armies heap’d, the locusts came,
      Like clouds in autumn umbering all the sky […]      3

Etymology

From Middle French ombre (“umber”), from terre d’ombre (“dark ochre”), from Old French umbre (“shade, shadow”), from Latin umbra. Doublet of umbra.

Pronunciation

  • (Received Pronunciation) IPA: /ˈʌmbə/
    • Audio (Southern England): 🔊
  • (General American) enPR: ŭmʹbər, IPA: /ˈʌmbɚ/
  • Rhymes: -ʌmbə(ɹ)
  • Hyphenation: um‧ber

Printed 2026-07-15.

(echo:: @ ⌗)

Footnotes

  1. c. 1598–1600 (date written), William Shakespeare, “As You Like It”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene iii], lines 518-21: ↩

  2. 1819, Joseph Rodman Drake, The Culprit Fay: ↩

  3. 1807, Charles Hoyle, Exodus: ↩