SG Heritage Dictionary

Storax [Noun] Webster's Dictionary 1828

1. A plant or tree; also, a resinous and odoriferous drug brought from Turkey, but generally adulterated. It imparts to water a yellow color, and has been deemed a resolvent.

2. STORAX is a solid balsam, either in red tears, or in large cakes, brittle, but soft to the touch, and of a reddish brown color. It is obtained from the Styrax officinalis, a tree which grows in the Levant. Liquid storax or styrax, is a liquid or semifluid balsam, said to be obtained from the Liquidamber styraciflua, a tree which grows in Virginia. It is greenish, of an aromatic taste, and agreeable smell.

Storax [Noun] Webster's Dictionary 1913

Any one of a number of similar complex resins obtained from the bark of several trees and shrubs of the Styrax family. The most common of these is liquid storax, a brown or gray semifluid substance of an agreeable aromatic odor and balsamic taste, sometimes used in perfumery, and in medicine as an expectorant.

Storax Encyclopedia Britannica

STORAX. It has been explained in Incense (vol. xii. p. 718) and Liquidambar (vol. xiv. p. 687) that the storax of commerce and the pharmacopceia (used as an emollient) is derived from the Oriental liquidambar tree. The storax of the ancients, on the other hand, a solid gum which does not now occur in commerce, appears to have been the product of the beautiful white-flowered shrub Styrax officinalis, which is still common on Carmel and elsewhere in Syria. It was much used as an incense, and formed an early and important article of Phoenician trade (see Movers, Phönizier, ii. 3. 101, 223 sq.). It is probable that the Greek word στύραξ is of Semitic origin, representing the Hebrew צרי, which the English version renders “balm” (Lagarde, Mittheilungen, p. 234 sqj).

9th ed. Encyclopædia Britannica, vol. 22, p. 577
[130 words — estimated reading time: 1 minute]