First attested in 1848; borrowed from Latin alba (the feminine form of albus (“white”)) in the now-disused species name of binomial nomenclature Rosa alba (it is now considered a hybrid and is accordingly called Rosa × alba).
Meanings
A white-flowered shrub rose of the hybrid Rosa × alba.
Borrowed from Ecclesiastical Latin alba (“alb”), from Latin alba (as in tunica alba (“white tunic”), vestis alba (“white garment”)), feminine of albus (“white”). Doublet of alb.
Meanings
Synonym of alb.
On a little plot of grass near the kitchen the family were spreading out a large supply of priestly vestments—albas, casullas, capas pluviales, ornamentos, parmentos, cíngulas, estolas, frontales, etc., etc., etc. 1857, Isaac F[arwell] Holton, “Montserrate and the Boqueron”, in New Granada: Twenty Months in the Andes, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers, page 217:
Another canon with a biretta in his hand, wearing an alba and an upper fur mucia, is kneeling to the left of the Crucifix; 2000, Ivo Hlobil, Ladislav Daniel, editors, The Last Flowers of the Middle Ages: From the Gothic to the Renaissance in Moravia and Silesia, →ISBN, page 304:
Christ, whom they meet, must wear an alba and an amictus, be barefooted, and carry a cross on the left shoulder. 1932, Theodore Komisarjevsky, The Costume of the Theatre, page 56:
Traditional styles such as cassocks and cottas, or contemporary trends in robes and collars, choir albas, skirts, caps and acolyte vestments. 1979, Yearbook, Board of Publication of the Lutheran Church in America, page 494: