MAS'TIC
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1. A low shrubby tree of the genus Pistacia (P. Lentiscus), growing upon the islands and coasts of the Mediterranean, and producing a valuable resin; -- called also, mastic tree.
2. A resin exuding from the mastic tree, and obtained by incision. The best is in yellowish white, semitransparent tears, of a faint smell, and is used as an astringent and an aromatic, also as an ingredient in varnishes.
3. A kind of cement composed of burnt clay, litharge, and linseed oil, used for plastering walls, etc.
Mastic
Encyclopedia Britannica
MASTIC, or Mastich, a resinous exudation obtained from the lentisk, Pistacia Lentiscus, an evergreen shrub of the natural order Anacardiacex. Thelentisk or mastic plantis indigenous to the Mediterranean coast region from Syria to Spain, but grows also in Portugal, Morocco, and the Canaries. Although experiments have proved that excellent mastic might be obtained in other islands in the archipelago, the production of the drug has been, since the time of Dioscorides, almost exclusively confined to the island of Scio. The mastic districts of that island are for the most part flat and stony, with little hills and few streams. The shrubs are about 6 feet high. The resin is contained in the bark and not in the wood, and in order to obtain it numerous vertical incisions are made, during June, July, and August, in the stem and chief branches. The resin speedily exudes and hardens into roundish or oval tears, which are collected, after about fifteen days, by women and children, in little baskets lined with white paper or cotton wool. The ground around the trees is kept hard and clean, and flat pieces of stone are often laid beneath them to prevent any droppings of resin from becoming contaminated with dirt. The collection is repeated three or four times between June and September, a fine tree being found to yield about 8 or 10 ft> of mastic during the season. Besides that obtained from the incisions, mastic of very fine quality spontaneously exudes from the small branches. The harvest is affected by showers of rain during the period of collection, and the trees are much injured by frost, which is, however, of rare occurrence in the districts where they grow.
Four qualities of mastic are recognized by the dealers in Scio....
1. Cake, consisting of large pieces, sold chiefly for use in the seraglios, being chewed by women of all ranks throughout the Turkish empire, for the purpose of imparting an agreeable odour to the breath. This quality is worth 120 to 130 piastres per oke (of 2‘83 lb) or even more.
2. Large tears, worth 90 to 100 piastres.
3. Small tears, valued at 75 to 80 piastres.
4. Mastic mixed with fragments of leaves and sand, chiefly consumed in the manufacture of the Turkish liqueur, or mastic brandy, called raki, and other cordials.
The third sort, in small tears, is that which is chiefly exported to England, the first and second qualities being sent to Turkey, especially Constantinople, also to Trieste, Vienna, and Marseilles.
These varieties are known to the dealers as κυλιστό, φλ<σκcfp<, πijττα, and <∕>λoυδα respectively.
Mastic still forms the principal revenue of Scio. In 1871, 28,000 lb of picked and 42,000 lb of common were exported from that island, the former being worth 6s. 10d. and the latter 2s. 10d. per lb. The average price in London varies from 2s. 6d. to 4s. 6d. per lb.
During the 15th, 16th, and 17th centuries mastic enjoyed a high reputation as a medicine, and formed an ingredient in a large number of medical compounds, but its use in medicine is now almost obsolete.
Mastic occurs in English commerce in the form of roundish tears about the size of peas, some of them, however, being oblong or pear-shaped. They are transparent, with a glassy fracture, of a pale yellow or faint greenish tinge, which darkens slowly by age. When chewed they rapidly soften, by which character they are easily distinguished from Sandarac resin, which while bearing a strong resemblance to mastic occurs in tears of a more cylindrical shape. The mastic which has been imported of late years presents a bright glassy appearance from having been washed free from dust.
Mastic is soluble in turpentine, chloroform, ether, acetone, and oil of cloves; but cold alcohol dissolves only 90 per cent, of it. The soluble portion is called Alpha resin (C 20 H 32 O 3 ), and possesses acid properties. The insoluble portion, Beta resin or Masticin, is somewhat less rich in oxygen, and is a translucent colourless tough substance insoluble in caustic alkali.
Pistacia Khinjuk, Stocks, and P. cabuliea, St., trees growing throughout Sindh, Baluchistan, and Cabul, yield a kind of mastic which is met with in the Indian bazaars under the name of Mustagi-τunιi, i.e., Roman mastic. This when met with in the European market is known as East Indian or Bombay mastic. In Algeria P. atlantica, Desf., yields a solid resin, which is collected and used by the Arabs as a masticatory. Cape mastic, used by the colonists, but not exported to England, is the produce of Eτtryops multifidus, the resin bush, or lιarpuis bosch, of the Boers,·—a plant of the composite order growing abundantly in the Clanwilliam district. Dammar resin is sometimes sold under the name of mastic. The West Indian mastic tree is the Bursera gummifera, and the Peruvian mastic is Schinus Molle, but neither of these furnishes commercial resins.
9th ed. Encyclopædia Britannica, vol. 15, p. 621
[827 words — estimated reading time: 5 minutes]
[827 words — estimated reading time: 5 minutes]
Capable of being masticated.
To grind or crush with, or as with, the teeth and prepare for swallowing and digestion; to chew; as, to masticate food.
of Masticate
One who masticates.
Chewing; breaking into small pieces with the teeth.
of Masticate
1. The act or operation of chewing solid food, breaking it into small pieces, and mixing it with saliva; thus preparing it for deglutition, and more easy digestion in the stomach.
2. Mastication is a necessary preparation of solid aliment, without which there can be no good digestion.
The act or operation of masticating; chewing, as of food.
1. One who masticates.
2. A machine for cutting meat into fine pieces for toothless people; also, a machine for cutting leather, India rubber, or similar tough substances, into fine pieces, in some processes of manufacture.
1. A resin exuding from the mastic-tree, a species of Pistacia, and obtained by incision. It is in white farinaceous tears, of a faint smell, and is used as an astringent and an aromatic. It is used also as an ingredient in drying varnishes.
2. A kind of mortar or cement.
A white, amorphous, tenacious substance resembling caoutchouc, and obtained as an insoluble residue of mastic.
1. Calcined white lead; yellow oxyd of lead. Lead exposed to the air while melting, is covered with a gray, dusky pellicle. This pellicle carefully taken off, is reduced by agitation to a greenish gray powder, inclining to yellow. This oxyd, separated from the grains of lead by sifting, and exposed to a more intense heat, sufficient to make it red hot, assumes a deep yellow color. In this state it is called massicot. Massicot, slowly heated by a moderate fire, takes a beautiful red color, and obtains the name of minium.
Semiliquidity Roget’s Thesaurus §352
N. semiliquidity, stickiness, viscidity, viscosity, gummosity, glutinosity, mucosity, spissitude, crassitude, lentor, adhesiveness, inspissation, incrassation, thickening, jelly, mucilage, gelatin, gluten, carlock, fish glue, ichthyocol, ichthycolla, isinglass, mucus, phlegm, goo, pituite, lava, glair, starch, gluten, albumen, milk, cream, protein|, treacle, gum, size, glue (tenacity) 327, wax, beeswax, emulsion, soup, squash, mud, slush, slime, ooze, moisture, marsh
Adj. semifluid, semiliquid, tremellose, half melted, half frozen, milky, muddy, lacteal, lactean, lacteous, lactescent, lactiferous, emulsive, curdled, thick, succulent, uliginous, gelatinous, albuminous, mucilaginous, glutinous, glutenous, gelatin, mastic, amylaceous, ropy, clammy, clotted, viscid, viscous, sticky, tacky, gooey, slab, slabby, lentous|, pituitous, mucid, muculent, mucous, gummy
Resin Roget’s Thesaurus §356a
N. resin, rosin, gum, lac, sealing wax, amber, # ambergris, bitumen, pitch, tar, asphalt, asphaltum, camphor, varnish, copal, mastic, magilp, lacquer, japan, artificial resin, polymer, ion-exchange resin, cation-exchange resin, anion exchange resin, water softener, amberlite, dowex, diaion
V. varnish
Adj. resiny, resinous, bituminous, pitchy, tarry, asphaltic, asphaltite, 1, vitality 1. vitality in general
King James Bible KJV Bible
Berean Standard Bible BSB Bible
1 KJV and 0 BSB verses contain “mastic”
Now then, if thou hast seen her, tell me, Under what tree sawest thou them companying together? Who answered, Under a mastick tree.