- Atramentum
Atramentum or atrament, generally means a very black, usually liquid, substance. For example, an octopus may emit a puff of atrament.
In one modern meaning of the word, atramentum is deep black coloring substance manufactured by a reaction of an iron salt with
tannic acid (the tannic acid for this purpose is often extracted from oak bark). It is a historically-important blackdye orpigment fundamentally different fromcarbon black or blackiron oxide pigments. It was also sometimes called "ink stone". It appears greyish-black in water but the colour becomes very deep and lustrous inlinseed oil [ [http://kremer-pigmente.de/intl.catalog/epigmen01.htm KREMER Pigmente: Kremer-made historical pigments ] ] .In
ancient Rome , the term "atramentum" signified any black colouring substance used for any purpose. The Romans distinguished three principal kinds of atramentum, one called librarium (or scriptorium), another called sutorium, the third tectorium. Atramentum librarium was the writing ink of Roman times, atramentum sutorium was used by shoemakers for dyeing leather, atramentum tectorium (or pidorium) was used by painters for some purposes, apparently as a sort of varnish. [ [http://www.ancientlibrary.com/smith-dgra/index.html William Smith (editor), "Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, 1870.] ]"Atramentous" is a related adjective which means "black as ink". Historically, "to atrament something" would mean to write something down with ink. The word "atrament" is related to modern English "atrocious" — both originate from Latin "atrare" which presumably meant to make something black.
ee also
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Ink
*Coprinopsis atramentaria
*Victaphanta atramentaria References
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