word of the day: ambrotype

The word of the day is ambrotype:

Etymology:  ? < Greek ἄμβροτος immortal (? imperishable), or perhaps amber n.¹ and adj., + type n. 

 

The name given in U.S. to a photograph on glass, in which the lights are produced by the silver, and the shades by a dark background showing through. (OED)

"'The Civil War and American Art' complements another show at the Met, 'Photography and the American Civil War', which opened in April with a theatrical profusion of vintage prints, stereographs, ambrotypes, and tintypes, notably from the studios of the pioneering photojournalist Mathew Brady and of Alexander Gardner, a former Brady staff photographer who set up in competition with him."

 - Peter Schjeldahl, "The seething hell: portraying the Civil War", 3 June 2013 The New Yorker