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Glite Dictionary
nacre

nacre

9.9
A hard, shiny inner layer of some shells that shows rainbow colours
  • noun
  • /ˈneɪ.kər/
  • Specialized
: nacar
  • He knotted his pudgy fists, the rings sending scintillating patterns over his costly nacre robes.

Little ears of the sea, most prized perhaps of nacre's gift, needed with rose flower.

Examples

  • The exclusionary nacre of the man-woman meaning embedded in our marriage laws blocks all children in homes headed by same-sex couples from the well-demonstrated psychological, legal, economic, physical, and other benefits.

    Academic text (2008)

  • When particles of light strike the nacre, they bounce around its multi layered crystalline structure in a cascade of shifting rainbows.

  • Little ears of the sea, most prized perhaps of nacre's gift, needed with rose flower.

    Harvard University

  • Her hair was P204 in a loose upsweep, held with a clasp, and it was the cold nacre that Inman's fingers touched as he tipped her head to him for the kiss that had eluded them the day before.

    Fiction book (1997)

  • I am responsible, writing years ago about his earlier poetry, for some of this nacre-niggling myself, but on the showing of this new prose (the surface is much more like human skin than anything so unyielding and relentless as mother-of-pearl), I think it is more interesting to call attention to Merrill's developing gift for erotic situation and surface.

    Academic text (1994)

  • The beautiful necklace was designed with a pendant made of nacre, giving it a lustrous shine.

  • Artisans often use nacre to create elegant inlays in furniture and decorative items.

  • The inside of the oyster revealed stunning layers of nacre, which glimmered in various shades of pink and green.

Synonyms

mother-of-pearl
vsnacre
5 6.0

A smooth shiny layer inside some shells that shows rainbow colours and is used for decoration

is the scientific term for that same inner shell layer

How Iridescent

nacre
  • Specialized
9.9
pearl
119 2.3

Surface Forms

nacre singular
nacres plural

Etymology

Nacre comes from the French word nacre, which named the shiny 'mother-of-pearl' found inside some shells. So nacre today means the smooth, rainbow-like inner layer of a shell that people use to make pearls and shiny objects.