adamant

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“
Even adamant were as flaming tow. "

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Definitions (11)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (3)

  1. adjective Impervious to pleas, appeals, or reason; stubbornly unyielding. See Synonyms at inflexible.
  2. noun A stone once believed to be impenetrable in its hardness.
  3. noun An extremely hard substance.

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Examples (50)

  • Yet Claire was adamant, and Sammy agreed with her. —  Up In A Heaval
  • I had argued and argued but she'd remained adamant, and now I was glad she'd been so stubborn. —  The Vatican Rip-Jonathan Gash- Lovejoy 05
  • The editor was adamant, although Pauling objected that he was curbing a right all members had to publish in the Proceedings without prior review by colleagues. —  Omni: June 1993
  • She was again told to tell what the sign or secret was which she had revealed to the King on first seeing him at Chinon; but about this she was firm as adamant, and refused to give any information. —  Joan of Arc
  • It was all the more wonderful to him, and he was all the more deeply grateful for it, because he knew that, in Mr Paton's views, the law of punishment for every offence was as a law of iron and adamant--a law as undeviating and beneficial as the law of gravitation itself A slow and hesitating footstep--the sound of the key turning in the door--a nervous hand resting on the handle--and Mr Paton stood before him In an instant Walter was on his knees beside him, his head bent over his clasped hands. —  St. Winifred's, or The World of School
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Roget's II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition by the Editors of the American Heritage® Dictionary. Copyright © 2003, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Etymologies (2)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (1)

  1. From Middle English, a hard precious stone, from Old French adamaunt, from Latin adamās, adamant-, from Greek, unconquerable, hard steel, diamond; see demə- in Indo-European roots.

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (1)

  1. from Middle English adamant, adamaunt, ademaunt, adamaund, also athamant, atthamant, etc. (after Anglo-Saxon athamans), and admont, from Old French adamaunt, ademaunt, in popular form aïmant = Provencal adiman, aziman, ayman = Spanish Portuguese iman, from Middle Latin *adimas (*adimant-), Latin adamas (adamant-), from Greek ἀδάμας (ἀδαμαντ-), literally unconquerable (from ἀ- privative + δαμᾶν, conquer, = Latin domare = English tame, q. v.), first used (by Homer) as a personal epithet; later (in Hesiod and subsequent writers) as the name of a very hard metal such as was used in armor—prob. steel, but endowed by imaginative writers with supernatural powers of resistance; in Plato, also of a metal resembling gold; in Theophrastus, of a gem, prob. a diamond; in Pliny, of the diamond, under which he includes also, perhaps, corundum; in Ovid, of the magnet; in later writers regarded as an anti-magnet. The name has thus always been of indefinite and fluctuating sense. From the same source, through the perverted Middle Latin forms diamans, diamentum, comes English diamant, diamond, q. v.
 

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/ˈædəmænt/
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