From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:
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.
[1913 Webster]
Opposed the rocky orb
Of tenfold adamant, his ample shield. --Milton.
[1913 Webster]
2. Lodestone; magnet. [Obs.] "A great adamant of
acquaintance." --Bacon.
[1913 Webster]
As true to thee as steel to adamant. --Greene.
[1913 Webster]
From WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006) [wn]:
adamant
adj 1: impervious to pleas, persuasion, requests, reason; "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
tendency" [syn: {adamant}, {adamantine}, {inexorable},
{intransigent}]
n 1: very hard native crystalline carbon valued as a gem [syn:
{diamond}, {adamant}]
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