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Aventurine
Definitions
- 1 A kind of brownish glass containing gold-coloured spangles. countable, uncountable
"[pages 244–245] Aventurine is a brown glass flux, containing very small glittering particles, which give it a peculiarly glittering appearance. It was formerly manufactured into objects of art and ornament at Murano near Venice. [...] The statements which are found respecting it in technological works, according to which it is obtained by fusing down with glass minute particles of gold, copper, brass, mica, or talc, are not correct, as the microscopic examination of aventurine plainly shows. [page 246] There can be no doubt therefore that the crystals in the aventurine consist of metallic copper, which were separated in a crystalline state from the fused glass containing oxide of copper by the addition of some reducing substance."
- 2 a translucent quartz spangled with bits of mica or other minerals wordnet
- 3 A variety of translucent quartz, spangled throughout with scales of yellow mica. broadly, countable, uncountable
"The Sandaresus, an Arabian stone, classed by Pliny [the Elder] among the Carbunculi, seems to have been our Aventurine, for he describes it as full of golden stars shining through a transparent substance, not from the surface, but from within the body of the stone. The true Aventurine, or Goldie-stone, is a brownish semi-transparent quartz, full of specks of yellow mica."
Etymology
Borrowed from French aventurine, from Italian avventurino, from avventurare (“to venture; to make lucky or prosperous”), from avventura (“chance; adventure, venture”) + -are (suffix forming the infinitive of most regular verbs), apparently so named because it was discovered by accident in Murano, Italy, when brass or copper filings were dropped into melted glass (see, however, the 1843 quotation).
See also for "aventurine"
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