A type of plaster used in India, made from shell-lime and sand.
1888, Rudyard Kipling, ‘On the City Wall’, In Black and White, Folio Society 2005, p. 429:
The floor of the room was of polished chunam, white as curds.
puhekieltä To plaster or waterproof with chunam.
The Sydney Morning Herald, Wednesday 8 March 1848
A PUNT FOR SALE, thirty-four feet long, twelve feet broad, and three feet ten inches deep, chunamed, sheathed, and coppered, carries about fifteen tons.