amber, n. (revised) 1. A fossilized resin, typically golden-yellow and translucent, used since antiquity for preservation of small bodies. 2. The colour of a mechanism observed but not understood; the light caught between gears that have no business fitting yet do. 3. (informal) The state of a traffic signal between go and stop; a Monday held at threshold, humming. 4. What forms around a day in which nothing moved but everything turned. 5. (obsolete) A substance believed to trap not insects but obligations — three per specimen, interlocking, each one wearing the other smooth. 6. See also: patina. See also: zero. See also: the particular transparency of keeping still while the works keep working.