Question

Read the excerpt below and answer the question. Then she stopped at a perfumer's and took from him ten sorts of waters, rose scented with musk, orange-flower, water-lily, willow-flower, violet and five others. And she also bought two loaves of sugar, a bottle for perfume-spraying, a lump of male incense, aloe wood, ambergris, and musk, with candles of Alexandria wax ... Based on the context in which it appears, what does the word ambergris most likely mean in this excerpt from The 1001 Nights?

Answer 1

Answer:

In the context in which appears, it would be accurate to infer that the "ambergris" is a type of scented material of some kind. In the context in which the word appears, many "romantic" things are mentioned: Candles of special wax, incence, perfume, etc. In this context, the ambergris is most likely something related to those things.

The "ambergris" is actually one of the world's strangest natural occurrences.   It is produced by sperm whales and has been used for centuries.