Hypertext Webster Gateway: "adamant"
From Easton's 1897 Bible Dictionary (easton)
Adamant
(Heb. shamir), Ezek. 3:9. The Greek word adamas means diamond.
This stone is not referred to, but corundum or some kind of hard
steel. It is an emblem of firmness in resisting adversaries of
the truth (Zech. 7:12), and of hard-heartedness against the
truth (Jer. 17:1).
From Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913) (web1913)
Adamant \Ad"a*mant\ ([a^]d"[.a]*m[a^]nt), n. [OE. adamaunt,
adamant, diamond, magnet, OF. adamant, L. adamas, adamantis,
the hardest metal, fr. Gr. 'ada`mas, -antos; 'a priv. +
dama^,n to tame, subdue. In OE., from confusion with L.
adamare to love, be attached to, the word meant also magnet,
as in OF. and LL. See {Diamond}, {Tame}.]
1. A stone imagined by some to be of impenetrable hardness; a
name given to the diamond and other substances of extreme
hardness; but in modern mineralogy it has no technical
signification. It is now a rhetorical or poetical name for
the embodiment of impenetrable hardness.
Opposed the rocky orb Of tenfold adamant, his ample
shield. --Milton.
2. Lodestone; magnet. [Obs.] ``A great adamant of
acquaintance.'' --Bacon.
As true to thee as steel to adamant. --Greene.
From WordNet (r) 1.7 (wn)
adamant
adj : not capable of being swayed or diverted from a course;
unsusceptible to persuasion; "he is adamant in his
refusal to change his mind"; "Cynthia was inexorable;
she would have none of him"- W.Churchill; "an
intransigent conservative opposed to every liberal
tendancy" [syn: {adamantine}, {inexorable}, {intransigent}]
n : very hard native crystalline carbon valued as a gem [syn: {diamond}]
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