ambeer

[ am-beer ]

noun

, Chiefly South Midland and Southern U.S.

1. tobacco juice.

Word History and Origins

Origin of ambeer¹

1755–65; Americanism; earlier, water soaked in cut tobacco refuse; perhaps blend of amber and beer, alluding to its color and foaminess

Example Sentences

A long cadaverous countenance, bedecked with a pair of hollow-glass-like eyes; a beard long as the face, hanging down over his breast, defiled with fragments of food and the “ambeer” of tobacco; behind which appeared a row of very large white teeth, set between lips of an unnaturally red colour; above these a long nose, broken near the middle, and obliquing outward to the sinister angle of his mouth;—such was the portrait presented by the individual in question.

From Project Gutenberg

His broadcloth coat—Mrs. Absalom called it a "shadbelly"—was greasy at the collar, and worn at the seams, and his waistcoat was stained with ambeer.

From Project Gutenberg

There was a gravity in his look, but that was not from any gravity of spirits; it was his swarth complexion that gave him this appearance, aided, no doubt, by several lines of “ambeer” proceeding from the corners of his mouth in the direction of the chin.

From Project Gutenberg

It is neither fair nor dark, but of a dull-brown colour, lighter around the mouth, where it has been bleached by the sun, “ambeer,” and water.

From Project Gutenberg