Animal fat or lard, especially as used in cooking, pharmaceutical preparations, or cosmetics; a fatty substance.
From Latin 'adeps' (fat, lard), a direct borrowing of the Latin word that referred to rendered animal fat used in Roman cooking and medicine.
Adeps was the original 'cooking oil' before petroleum extraction—Romans and medieval people built entire industries around rendered animal fats, and 'adeps lanae' (greasy wool fat) was used as the base for countless medicinal salves.
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