Adamant

//ˈæd.ə.mənt// adj, noun

Definitions

Adjective
  1. 1
    Firm; unshakeable; unyielding; determined.

    "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"

  2. 2
    Very difficult to break, pierce, or cut.

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

Adjective
  1. 1
    impervious to pleas, persuasion, requests, reason wordnet
Noun
  1. 1
    An unspecified mineral or rock of virtually impenetrable hardness.

    "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."

  2. 2
    very hard native crystalline carbon valued as a gem wordnet
  3. 3
    An unspecified mineral or rock of virtually impenetrable hardness.; In later use: diamond. historical, poetic
  4. 4
    An unspecified mineral or rock of virtually impenetrable hardness.; In later use: a lodestone. archaic, poetic

    "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. 5
    An unspecified mineral or rock of virtually impenetrable hardness.; A substance that neutralizes lodestones.

    "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 […]"

Show 2 more definitions
  1. 6
    Chiefly in of adamant: an embodiment of impenetrable hardness; the quality of not being easily destroyed or overcome; impenetrableness, imperviousness, impregnableness; also, of a person: the quality of not being easily affected emotionally; impassiveness, unmovableness. figuratively

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

  2. 7
    A person or thing having the quality of attracting or drawing; a lodestone, a magnet. figuratively, obsolete

Etymology

Etymology 1

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.

Etymology 2

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.

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