1. One whose occupation it is to embalm dead bodies.
1587. Golding, De Mornay, viii. 108. Imbalmers of Dead bodyes.
1626. Bacon, Sylva, § 771. The Romans, in Numa’s time, were not so good Embalmers, as the Egyptians were.
1700. Bickerst. detected, in Swift’s Wks. (1755), II. I. 165. Undertakers, imbalmers, joiners, [etc.].
1744. The Travels of the late Charles Thompson, III. 289. The Embalmers having done their Part, the Corps was deliver’d to the Relations, who put it in a wooden Coffin shaped like a Man.
1775. Sheridan, Duenna, I. iii. As … embalmers serve mummies.
1861. All Y. Round, V. 14. The embalmer’s work from all decay Had kept his royal person.
1877. Amelia B. Edwards, Up Nile, xxii. 690. A straggling suburb inhabited by the embalmers.
2. fig. That which sweetly preserves from decay.
1838. Emerson, Wks. (Bohn), II. 192. The religious sentiment is a mountain air. It is the embalmer of the world.
