adamant

• adamaunt (obsolete)

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.

• IPA^(key): /ˈæ.də.mənt/

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adamant (comparative more adamant, superlative most adamant)

1. (said of people and their conviction) Firm; unshakeable; unyielding; determined.
   • 2002, Charles Moncrief, Wildcatters: The True Story of how Conspiracy, Greed and the IRS ..., page 195:

     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

   • 2006, Cara E. C. Vermaak, Confessions of the Dyslexic Virgin, page 275:

     Johan is determined to play the field and adamant about never committing.

   • 2010, Deeanne Gist, Maid to Match, page 94:

     What good would such foolishness do a mountain man? But Pa had been adamant. Just as he'd been adamant about their reading, writing, numbers, geography, and languages. Just as he'd been adamant about using proper grammar

2. (of an object) very difficult to break, pierce, or cut.
   • 1956, Arthur C. Clarke, The City and the Stars, page 34:

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

• See also Thesaurus:obstinate

• adamant at OneLook Dictionary Search

adamant (plural adamants)

1. An imaginary rock or mineral of impenetrable hardness; a name given to the diamond and other substances of extreme hardness.
   • 1582, Robert Parsons, chapter 8, in The first booke of the Christian exercise, appertayning to resolution‎, G. Flinton:

     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. An embodiment of impregnable hardness.
3. A magnet; a lodestone.
   • 1594–96, William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night's Dream:

     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.

• adamance (noun)
• adamantane (adjective)
• adamantean (adjective)
• adamantine (adjective)
• adamantly (adverb)

• adamant in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.

• IPA^(key): /ˈadamant/

adamant m (plural adamantow)

1. The mineral, diamond
2. A gemstone made from diamond.

adamant f (genitive singular adamainte, nominative plural adamaintí)

1. Alternative form of adhmaint (“adamant, lodestone; magnet”)

• "adamant" in Foclóir Gaeilge-Béarla, An Gúm, 1977, by Niall Ó Dónaill.

adamant

1. third-person plural present active indicative of adamō

• athamaunt, adamaunt, adamawnte, adamaunde, ademand

From Latin adamantem, accusative of adamās, from Ancient Greek ἀδάμας (adámas). Compare adamas.

• IPA^(key): /ˈadəmant/, /ˈadəmau̯nt/

adamant (plural adamants)

1. adamant, adamantine (valuable gemstone)
2. An invulnerable or indomitable object
3. A natural magnet; magnetite.

• adamantine

• English: adamant
• Scots: adamant (obsolete)

• “adama(u)nt (n.)” in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007, retrieved 2018-05-11.