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adamant

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

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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
    • 2025 April 8, Whitney Eulich, Andrea Salcedo, “For Panamanians, the canal is theirs. But who profits from it?”, in The Christian Science Monitor:
      Most Panamanians are adamant that the canal, completed in 1914, will not return to U.S. control.
  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:
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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
singular plural
nominative adamant adamaintí
vocative a adamant a adamaintí
genitive adamainte adamaintí
dative adamant adamaintí
forms with the definite article
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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Declension of adamant
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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