Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Impervious to pleas, appeals, or reason; stubbornly unyielding. See Synonyms at inflexible.
- n. A stone once believed to be impenetrable in its hardness.
- n. An extremely hard substance.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. A name applied with more or less indefiniteness to various real or imaginary metals or minerals characterized by extreme hardness: as the diamond
- n. the natural opposite of the diamond
- n. a lodestone or magnet, and
- n. an anti-magnet.
- n. In general, any substance of impenetrable or surpassing hardness; that which is impregnable to any force.
Wiktionary
- adj. Firm; unshakeable; unyielding; determined.
- n. A rock or mineral held by some to be of impenetrable hardness; a name given to the diamond and other substances of extreme hardness.
- n. An embodiment of impregnable hardness.
- n. A magnet; a lodestone.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. 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.
- n. obsolete Lodestone; magnet.
WordNet 3.0
- adj. impervious to pleas, persuasion, requests, reason
- n. very hard native crystalline carbon valued as a gem
Etymologies
- From Latin adamantem, accusative singular form of adamās ("hard as steel"), from Ancient Greek ἀδάμας (adamas, "invincible"), from ἀ- (a-, "not") + δαμάζω (damazo, "I tame"). (Wiktionary)
- 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. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“While some analysts believe the Fed's move has been largely priced in, others remain adamant that the U.S. currency will suffer as long as policy is eased further.”
The Wall Street Journal: Easing Uncertainty Pushes Dollar Lower
“I was adamant from the outset that it should be packaged like fiction … petite |”
“Still, Republicans say they remain adamant that public broadcasting cannot receive funding at the expense of healthcare and education programs.”
“Anorexia is defined as the adamant conscious refusal to eat, to the point of self-starvation; in extreme cases, it can be so severe as to cause death.”
“I shall say, he that can take a prospect of the eternally miserable condition of multitudes among whom we live, and the approaching miseries which, without repentance and reformation, will not be avoided, and not spend some tears on them, hath a heart like a flint or adamant, that is capable of no impression.”
“It is the greatest kind of hardness; and hence they are said to be harder than a rock, or than an adamant, that is, harder than flint; so hard, that nothing can enter (Jer 5: 3; Zech 7: 12).”
“I'm always kind of adamant that musicians should not be visual artists.”
The Huffington Post: Jon Chattman: Band on the Rise: The Naked and the Famous Break Out of NZ
“Director Ruba Nadda says she was "adamant" that the character be 50 years old.”
The Wall Street Journal: Clarkson Finds Her Star Turn in 'Time'
“Laura Bush was "adamant" about it, but kept it all quiet.”
“Speaking at a seminar on the state response to the crime problem, senior researcher Johan Burger said that he was "adamant" that the strategy had failed.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘adamant’.
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GRE 2014
abate, abdicate, abase, aberrant, abeyance, abhor, abjure, abortive, abound, abrasive, abreast, abridge and 1577 more...
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GRE Barrons Wordlist
A complete Barron's Wordlist for GRE preparation. Your online flashcard replacement.
abase, abash, abate, abbreviate, abdicate, aberrant, aberration, abet, abeyance, abhor, abject, abjure and 4087 more...
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Muse's tacet ,to learn
Music brings silence's to raging thoughts and temperament , calm, as it is our object of definite purpose.
tacet, cadence, tempo, treble clef, penultimate, lexicon, origin, orchestra, kantele, magus, eros, coalesce and 248 more...
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Verbal_Advantage
paraphrase, ostensible, digress, uncanny, candor, morose, adept, saturated, pragmatic, congenial, capricious, blatant and 38 more...
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3/4 year Vocab List
voracious, indiscriminate, eminent, steeped, replete, awe, buffoon, abound, technology, prognosticate, automaton, matron and 96 more...
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Dominant/Submissive
abusive, adamant, autocratic, bossy, bullheaded, bumptious, certain, cock-a-hoop, cocksure, cocky, commanding, compelling and 189 more...
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3/4 year Vocab List
voracious, indiscriminate, eminent, steeped, replete, awe, buffoon, abound, technology, prognosticate, automaton, matron and 96 more...
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501
Classic
mete, ire, bane, bilk, boor, elan, ado, toil, onus, aberration, abstruse, anomaly and 401 more...
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GRE Barron's 800
zealot, wistful, welter, wary, whimsical, warranted, vortex, vivisection, volatile, vitiate, viscous, visage and 787 more...
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EN - archaic words
abide, abjure, abroad, adamant, afield, aforetime, aghast, anon, apace, argent, assuage, aught and 328 more...
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501
Classic
abhor, mirth, obtuse, iota, vex, irk, teem, pith, moot, mete, ire, bane and 401 more...
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501
Classic
aberration, abstruse, anomaly, assiduous, august, banal, boisterous, dulcet, epitome, impudent, insolent, mellifluous and 401 more...
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501
Classic
bane, bilk, boor, elan, ado, toil, onus, aberration, abstruse, anomaly, assiduous, august and 401 more...
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Words build meanings from origins( et...
These come from gamma meditation ,I think.
discursive, exogenous, machinations, purportedly, sumptuous, congruity, cantankerous, incongruous, festoon, hessian, ratiocinative, stratigraphic and 2046 more...
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GRE
predilection, explicit, appeal, supplication, appealing, enchanting, ovation, pertinent, apropos, opportunely, applicable, germane and 381 more...
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Philosophic , etymology
every major discipline has uniquely developed esoteric nomenclature to facilitate interdisciplinary dissemination
quale , qualia, elegy, tacet, lexicon, annunciate, caste, eros, contrive, purlicue, irony, venacular, dilapidate and 567 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for adamant.
pradyumnaojha BK is an adamant manager who never accepts suggestions from his team members. Feb 15, 2013
Jubjub Aw shoot! I must have left the sugar out. Dec 24, 2009
avsar adamant can also be used to describe one's refusal to be persuaded or change mind Jul 5, 2009
catspringer What, it doesn't mean to have hidden vices? "Don't smoke, don't drink...what do you do?" Apr 10, 2009
martagreen "But truth is hard as adamant and tender as a blossom." -Mahatma Gandhi (An Autobiography or The Story of My Experiments with Truth) Mar 6, 2009
dimã©lion i also really wanted to include this, from the Oxford dictionary:
ORIGIN Old English (as a noun), from Old French adamaunt-, via Latin from Greek adamas, adamant, ‘untamable, invincible’ (later used to denote the hardest metal or stone, hence diamond), from a- ‘not’ + daman ‘to tame.’ The phrase to be adamant dates from the 1930s, although adjectival use had been implied in such collocations as “an adamant heart�? since the 16th cent. Nov 22, 2008
dimã©lion one of my very favourite words. they forgot to put in the definition "a legendary rock or mineral to which many, often contradictory, properties were attributed, formerly associated with diamond or lodestone." that's my favourite part of this word. Nov 22, 2008
elisheba i particularly like the collocation "to be adamant that" Sep 2, 2008
elisheba see also syn. adamantine (poet.) - "unbreakable" Sep 2, 2008