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Glite Dictionary
🧱 A sticky paste 🌳 An evergreen shrub 🧴 A fragrant gum
mastic

mastic

9.9
A sticky fragrant gum from a Mediterranean tree used to flavor food or seal wood
  • noun
  • /ˈmæstɪk/
translation icon : goma de mástique
  • She places the handle, passed down to her from her mother, into the ashes of the hearth, warming the acacia tree gum (mastic) that holds the scraper in its socket.

Examples

  • The artisan used mastic to create a smooth, glossy finish on the wooden furniture.

  • The ancient Greeks prized mastic for its aromatic qualities and used it in various rituals.

  • - The mastic that works is number three.

    Don't Look Now (1973)

  • I'll have the mastic samples by then.

    Don't Look Now (1973)

  • The walls are covered with excreta chemically similar to the pile excretions, which forms a mastic to reinforce the tunnel against.

    Fiction book (1999)

  • In Mediterranean cooking, you can flavor your desserts with mastic for a unique taste.

Compounds

mastic tree
9.9

An evergreen shrub from the Mediterranean that makes a sticky scented sap used in food, medicine and industry

Peruvian mastic tree
9.9

A small evergreen tree from Peru with a rounded top, hanging branches, greenish flowers, and pink fruit

Surface Forms

mastic singular
mastics plural

Etymology

Mastic also names the aromatic gum or resin from that tree and comes from the same root as masticate 'to chew' because people once chewed this gum. That's why mastic is used as a flavoring and in varnish.