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adamant

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

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English Wikipedia has an article on:
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Alternative forms

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Etymology

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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

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  • IPA(key): /ˈæd.ə.mənt/, /ˈæd.ə.mænt/
  • Audio (US):(file)
  • Audio (New Jersey):(file)

Adjective

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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

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Translations

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Noun

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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[1], 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 [Uniform ed., p. 163]:
      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[ward] 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

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See also

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Derived terms

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Further reading

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Cornish

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English Wikipedia has an article on:
Wikipedia

Pronunciation

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Noun

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adamant m (plural adamantow)

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

Irish

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Noun

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adamant f (genitive singular adamainte, nominative plural adamaintí)

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

Declension

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Declension of adamant (second declension)
bare forms
case singular plural
nominative adamant adamaintí
vocative a adamant a adamaintí
genitive adamainte adamaintí
dative adamant adamaintí
forms with the definite article
case singular plural
nominative an adamant na hadamaintí
genitive na hadamainte na n-adamaintí
dative leis an adamant
don adamant 		leis na hadamaintí

Mutation

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Mutated forms of adamant
radical eclipsis with h-prothesis with t-prothesis
adamant n-adamant hadamant not applicable

Note: Certain mutated forms of some words can never occur in standard Modern Irish.
All possible mutated forms are displayed for convenience.

Further reading

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Latin

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Verb

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adamant

  1. third-person plural present active indicative of adamō

Middle English

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Alternative forms

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Etymology

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

Pronunciation

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

Noun

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adamant (plural adamants)

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

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  • English: adamant
  • Scots: adamant (obsolete)

Further reading

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Old French

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Alternative forms

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Etymology

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

Noun

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

  1. adamant; diamond
  2. lodestone; magnet

Further reading

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adamant in Anglo-Norman Dictionary, Aberystwyth University, 2022

Polish

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Alternative forms

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Etymology

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Learned borrowing from Latin adamās, from Ancient Greek ἀδάμας (adámas, “invincible”).[1] First attested in 1525.[2] Doublet of diament.

Pronunciation

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  • Rhymes: -amant
  • Syllabification: a‧da‧mant

Noun

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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[2], 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

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Declension of adamant
singular
nominative adamant
genitive adamantu
dative adamantowi
accusative adamant
instrumental adamantem
locative adamancie
vocative adamancie

Noun

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adamant m inan

  1. (Middle Polish, mineralogy) diamond
    Synonym: diament

Declension

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Attested forms of adamant
singular plural
nominative adamant adamanty
genitive adamantu —
dative — —
accusative adament —
instrumental — —
locative — —
vocative — —

Derived terms

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adjective
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adjective
nouns

References

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  1. ^ Krystyna Siekierska (08.03.2012) “ADAMANT”, in Elektroniczny Słownik Języka Polskiego XVII i XVIII Wieku [Electronic Dictionary of the Polish Language of the XVII and XVIII Century]
  2. ^ Maria Renata Mayenowa, Stanisław Rospond, Witold Taszycki, Stefan Hrabec, Władysław Kuraszkiewicz (2010-2023) “adamas”, in Słownik Polszczyzny XVI Wieku [A Dictionary of 16th Century Polish]

Further reading

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Romanian

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Etymology

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Borrowed from Old Church Slavonic адамантъ (adamantŭ).

Noun

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adamant n (plural adamante)

  1. (dated) diamond
    Synonym: diamant

Declension

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singular plural
indefinite definite indefinite definite
nominative-accusative adamant adamantul adamante adamantele
genitive-dative adamant adamantului adamante adamantelor
vocative adamantule adamantelor
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