sebum

Learned borrowing from Latin sēbum (“tallow, grease; suet”).

• IPA^(key): /ˈsiːbəm/, /ˈsiːbm̩/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• Hyphenation: se‧bum

sebum (countable and uncountable, plural sebums or seba)

1. (physiology) A thick oily substance, secreted by the sebaceous glands of the skin, that consists of fat, keratin and cellular debris.
   • 2000, Zadie Smith, White Teeth, London: Hamish Hamilton, →ISBN, page 387:

     ‘I mean, it is not simply adolescent acne caused by the over-excretion of sebum.’

• embus

• sēvum, saevum
• sēba, cēpum, cēpa (Medieval Latin)

From Proto-Indo-European *seyb- (“to pour out”), whence also (through Proto-Germanic) sāpō.

• (Classical Latin) IPA^(key): [ˈseː.bũː]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): [ˈsɛː.bum]

sēbum n (genitive sēbī); second declension

1. tallow, grease
2. suet
3. hard animal fat

Second-declension noun (neuter).

• “sebum”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “sebum”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891), An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• “sebum”, in Gaffiot, Félix (1934), Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.

Borrowed from French sébum, from Latin sēbum.

sebum n (uncountable)

1. sebum