Obs. Chiefly north. dial. Also 4–6 lambre, 5 laumb(e)re, lambur, lawmer, 6, 9 lammer, 9 lamar, -er, -our. [a. F. l’amore, applied esp. to ambre jaune ‘yellow amber,’ i.e., amber as distinguished from ambre gris or AMBERGRIS.] Amber. Also attrib., as lamber beads, colo(u)r.
a. 1387. Sinon. Barthol. (Anecd. Oxon.), 26. Kacabre, i. lambre.
c. 1400. Maundev. (Roxb.), xxi. 97. Bedes of laumbre.
1429. Test. Ebor. (Surtees), I. 417. A pare of lambre bedes.
c. 1430. Two Cookery-bks., 26. Take … Safron, þat it haue a fayre Laumbere coloure.
c. 1450. Bk. Curtasye, 480, in Babees Bk. Bedys of coralle and lambur.
1550. Lyndesay, Sqr. Meldrum, 1008. Than scho passit vnto hir Chalmer, And fand hir madinnis, sweit as Lammer, Sleipand full sound.
1552. Huloet, Ambre called lambre or yelow Ambre.
1603. E. Fairfax, Eclogue, iv. in Eliz. Cooper, Muses Libr. (1737), I. 368. Crown thy Lamber Horns with Corall Roses.
1610. Markham, Masterp., I. xiv. 38. If the vrine … be … high-coloured, bright and cleare like lamber and not like amber.
1724. Ramsay, Tea-t. Misc. (1733), I. 107. Her locks that shin’d like lammer.
1806. R. Jamieson, Pop. Ballads, I. 181. It is your lady’s heart’s blood: ’Tis as clear as the lamer.
1818. Scott, Hrt. Midl., xiii. Dinna ye think poor Jeanie’s een wi’ the tears in them glanced like lamour beads, Mr. Saddletree? Ibid., Br. Lamm., xii. A grogram gown, lammer beads, and a clean cockernony.
