ADAMANT

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does adamant mean? 

• ADAMANT (noun)
  The noun ADAMANT has 1 sense:

1. very hard native crystalline carbon valued as a gem

  Familiarity information: ADAMANT used as a noun is very rare.

• ADAMANT (adjective)
  The adjective ADAMANT has 1 sense:

1. impervious to pleas, persuasion, requests, reason

  Familiarity information: ADAMANT used as an adjective is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• ADAMANT (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Very hard native crystalline carbon valued as a gem

Classified under:

Nouns denoting substances

Synonyms:

adamant; diamond

Hypernyms ("adamant" is a kind of...):

atomic number 6; C; carbon (an abundant nonmetallic tetravalent element occurring in three allotropic forms: amorphous carbon and graphite and diamond; occurs in all organic compounds)

transparent gem (a gemstone having the property of transmitting light without serious diffusion)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "adamant"):

black diamond; carbonado (an inferior dark diamond used in industry for drilling and polishing)

• ADAMANT (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Impervious to pleas, persuasion, requests, reason

Synonyms:

adamant; adamantine; inexorable; intransigent

Context example:

an intransigent conservative opposed to every liberal tendency

Similar:

inflexible (incapable of change)

Derivation:

adamance (resoluteness by virtue of being unyielding and inflexible)

 Context examples 

It is hooped round with a hollow cylinder of adamant, four feet yards in diameter, placed horizontally, and supported by eight adamantine feet, each six yards high.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

But it looked at me over the head of Red Whisker, and I was adamant.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

The stone cannot be removed from its place by any force, because the hoop and its feet are one continued piece with that body of adamant which constitutes the bottom of the island.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

This magnet is sustained by a very strong axle of adamant passing through its middle, upon which it plays, and is poised so exactly that the weakest hand can turn it.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

In this cave are twenty lamps continually burning, which, from the reflection of the adamant, cast a strong light into every part.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

The bottom, or under surface, which appears to those who view it below, is one even regular plate of adamant, shooting up to the height of about two hundred yards.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

At the centre of the island there is a chasm about fifty yards in diameter, whence the astronomers descend into a large dome, which is therefore called flandona gagnole, or the astronomer’s cave, situated at the depth of a hundred yards beneath the upper surface of the adamant.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

For, if the town intended to be destroyed should have in it any tall rocks, as it generally falls out in the larger cities, a situation probably chosen at first with a view to prevent such a catastrophe; or if it abound in high spires, or pillars of stone, a sudden fall might endanger the bottom or under surface of the island, which, although it consist, as I have said, of one entire adamant, two hundred yards thick, might happen to crack by too great a shock, or burst by approaching too near the fires from the houses below, as the backs, both of iron and stone, will often do in our chimneys.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)