Emily Dickinson Lexicon

BIS'TER, n. [Fr. bistre, from bis, brown.]

Among painters, the burnt oil extracted from the soot of wood; a brown pigment. To prepare it, soot [that of beach is the best] is put into water, in the proportion of two pounds to a gallon, and boiled half an hour; after standing to settle, and while hot, the clearer part of the fluid must be poured off from the sediment, and evaporated to dryness; the remainder is bister. – Encyc.