adamant

English

English Wikipedia has an article on:

adamant

Wikipedia

Alternative forms

• adamaunt (obsolete)

Etymology

From Middle English adamant, adamaunt, from Latin adamantem, accusative singular form of adamās (“hard as steel”), from Ancient Greek ἀδάμας (adámas, “invincible”), from ἀ- (a-, “not”) + δαμάζω (damázō, “I tame”) or of Semitic origin. Doublet of diamond.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈæd.ə.mənt/, /ˈæd.ə.mænt/

• Audio (US)

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Adjective

adamant (comparative more adamant, superlative most adamant)

1. (said of people and their conviction) Firm; unshakeable; unyielding; determined.
   • 2002, Charles Moncrief, Wildcatters: The True Story of how Conspiracy, Greed and the IRS ..., page 195:

     Broiles and Kirkley were adamant about getting out of the lawsuit, but Mike and Dee were equally adamant about not wanting to sign a letter of apology

   • 2006, Cara E. C. Vermaak, Confessions of the Dyslexic Virgin, page 275:

     Johan is determined to play the field and adamant about never committing.

   • 2010, Deeanne Gist, Maid to Match, page 94:

     What good would such foolishness do a mountain man? But Pa had been adamant. Just as he'd been adamant about their reading, writing, numbers, geography, and languages. Just as he'd been adamant about using proper grammar

2. (of an object) Very difficult to break, pierce, or cut.
   • 1956, Arthur C. Clarke, The City and the Stars, page 34:

     Unprotected matter, however adamant, would have been ground to dust ages ago.

Synonyms

• See also Thesaurus:obstinate

Translations

Noun

adamant (plural adamants)

2. An imaginary rock or mineral of impenetrable hardness; a name given to the diamond and other substances of extreme hardness.
   • 1582, Robert Parsons, chapter 8, in The first booke of the Christian exercise, appertayning to resolution‎, G. Flinton:

     This then is and alwayes hath ben the fashion of Worldlinges, & reprobate persons, to harden their hartes as an adamant stone, against anye thinge that shalbe tolde the for amendement of their lives, and for the savinge of their soules.

   • 1611, King James Translators, Ezekiel 3:9:

     As an adamant harder than flint have I made thy forehead …

   • 1831, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter XV, in Romance and Reality. , volume I, London: Henry Colburn and Richard Bentley, , →OCLC, page 162:

     But this was a finale she ever avoided: an offer, like the rock of adamant in Sinbad's voyages, finishes the attraction by destroying the vessel;...

3. An embodiment of impregnable hardness.
   • 1907, E.M. Forster, The Longest Journey, Part I, XV :

     Actual life might seem to her so real that she could not detect the union of shadow and adamant that men call poetry.

4. (archaic) A lodestone.
   • c. 1595–1596 (date written), William Shakespeare, “A Midsommer Nights Dreame”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies (First Folio), London: Isaac Iaggard, and Ed Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, (please specify the act number in uppercase Roman numerals, and the scene number in lowercase Roman numerals):

     You draw me, you hard-hearted adamant:
     But yet you draw not iron, for all my heart
     Is true as steel. Leave you your power to draw,
     And I shall have no power to follow you.

5. (obsolete or historical) A substance that neutralizes lodestones.
   • 1657 [1608], Jean de Renou, translated by Richard Tomlinson, A Medicinal Dispensatory , page 418:

     An Adamant hinders the attractive vertue, as also Garlick rubbed on the Magnet; for its attractive faculty is not so valid, but it may be easily deluded, obscured, and superated […]

   • 2012, Daryn Lehoux, What Did the Romans Knows? An Inquiry into Science and Worldmaking, →ISBN, page 139:

     But we know from book 37 of the Natural History that adamant works on magnets in exactly the same way that garlic does: robbing them of their power to attract.

Translations

See also

• (imaginary desirably hard material): unobtainium

Derived terms

Further reading

• “adamant”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.
• “adamant”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.

Cornish

English Wikipedia has an article on:

adamant

Wikipedia

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈadamant/

Noun

adamant m (plural adamantow)

1. The mineral, diamond
2. A gemstone made from diamond.

Irish

Noun

adamant f (genitive singular adamainte, nominative plural adamaintí)

1. Alternative form of adhmaint (“adamant, lodestone; magnet”)

Declension

Mutation

Further reading

• Ó Dónaill, Niall (1977) “adamant”, in Foclóir Gaeilge–Béarla, Dublin: An Gúm, →ISBN

Latin

Verb

adamant

1. third-person plural present active indicative of adamō

Middle English

Alternative forms

• adamaunde, adamaunt, adamawnte, ademand, athamaunt

Etymology

Learned borrowing from Latin adamantem, accusative of adamās, from Ancient Greek ἀδάμας (adámas). Doublet of dyamaunt and adamas.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /adəˈmant/, /adəˈmau̯nt/, /ˈadəmant/, /ˈadəmau̯nt/

Noun

adamant (plural adamants)

1. adamant, adamantine (valuable gemstone)
2. An invulnerable or indomitable object
3. A natural magnet; magnetite.

Related terms

• adamantine

Descendants

• English: adamant
• Scots: adamant (obsolete)

Further reading

• “adama(u)nt, n.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007, retrieved 2018-05-11.

Old French

Alternative forms

• adamante, adamaunt, aimand, aimande, aimant, äimant, aimante, aymant, aimaunt, aimont, aamant, amant, amand, aimas

Etymology

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)

Noun

adamant oblique singular, ? (oblique plural adamanz or adamantz, nominative singular adamant, nominative plural adamanz or adamantz)

1. adamant; diamond
2. lodestone; magnet

Further reading

adamant in Anglo-Norman Dictionary, Aberystwyth University, 2022

Polish

Alternative forms

• adamas, adament (Middle Polish)

Etymology

Learned borrowing from Latin adamās, from Ancient Greek ἀδάμας (adámas, “invincible”). First attested in 1525. Doublet of diament.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /aˈda.mant/
• (Middle Polish) IPA^(key): /aˈda.mant/
• Rhymes: -amant
• Syllabification: a‧da‧mant

Noun

adamant m inan

1. adamant (an imaginary rock or mineral of impenetrable hardness; a name given to the diamond and other substances of extreme hardness)
   • 2008, Zygmunt Kubiak, Mitologia Greków i Rzymian‎, Świat Książki:

     A pojawił się też opiekun wędrowców, Hermes, i wręczył młodzieńcowi sierp z adamantu.

     And the guardian of the wanderers, Hermes, also appeared and gave the young man a sickle made of adamant

Declension

Noun

adamant m inan

1. (Middle Polish, mineralogy) diamond

   Synonym: diament

Declension

Derived terms

Related terms

References

Further reading

• Krystyna Siekierska (08.03.2012) “ADAMAS”, in Elektroniczny Słownik Języka Polskiego XVII i XVIII Wieku [Electronic Dictionary of the Polish Language of the XVII and XVIII Century]
• J. Karłowicz, A. Kryński, W. Niedźwiedzki, editors (1900), “adamant”, in Słownik języka polskiego‎ (in Polish), volume 1, Warsaw, page 7

Romanian

Etymology

Borrowed from Old Church Slavonic адамантъ (adamantŭ).

Noun

adamant n (plural adamante)

1. (dated) diamond

   Synonym: diamant

Declension