a brownish-yellow gum resin, having an acrid taste, occurring in tearlike fragments from a plant, Dorema ammoniacum, of western Asia: used in porcelain ceramics and in medicine as an expectorant and counterirritant
Also called: ammoniac, ammoniacum
Word origin
[1350–1400; ME]This word is first recorded in the period 1350–1400. Other words that entered Englishat around the same time include: drag, fix, kick, negative, screen