Emily Dickinson Lexicon

CIN'NA-BAR, n. [Gr. κινναβαρι; L. cinnabaris; Persian قَنْبَاْر kanbar.]

Red sulphuret of mercury. Native cinnabar is an ore of quicksilver, moderately compact, very heavy, and of an elegant striated red color. It is called native vermilion, and its chief use is in painting. The intensity of its color is reduced by bruising and dividing it into small parts. It is found amorphous, or under some imitative form, or crystalized. Factitious cinnabar is a mixture of mercury and sulphur sublimed, and thus reduced into a fine red glebe. – Encyc. Cleaveland. Hooper.