Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. An apple-green chalcedony used as a gemstone.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. A variety of chalcedony commonly apple-green in color and often extremely beautiful, so that it is much esteemed in jewelry. It is translucent, or sometimes semi-transparent, and of a hardness little inferior to that of flint.
- n. The ancient name of a golden-green precious stone, now generally believed to have been a variety of the beryl or possibly a green variety of fluor-spar (chlorophane), which possesses the properly of shining in the dark or by the heat of the hand.
Wiktionary
- n. A variety of light-green translucent quartz.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. An apple-green variety of chalcedony, colored by nickel. It has a dull flinty luster, and is sometimes used in jewelry.
WordNet 3.0
- n. a green variety of chalcedony valued as a gemstone
Etymologies
- Middle English crisopase, from Old French crisopras, from Latin chrȳsoprasus, from Greek khrūsoprasos : khrūso-, chryso- + prason, leek; see praseodymium.
Examples
“Poet to dictate blank verse to the pretty young secretary, who curled both feet round one leg of her chair, told him that she "loved his potry more'n anythink she'd ever read" and asked how all the hard words like "chrysoprase" and "asphdel" were spelt.”
“Whenever you speak of water, treat it as fire -- of fire, _vice versa_, as water; and be sure to send them all shattering out of reach and discrimination of all sense; and look into a dictionary for some such word as "chrysoprase," which we find to come from χρυσος gold, and πρασον a leek, and means a precious stone; it is capable of being shattered, together with "sunshine" -- the reader will think the whole passage a "flash" of moonshine.”
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV.
“She makes 50 pieces a year using semiprecious stones such as aquamarines, hessonites, chrysoprase and pink tourmaline, and ranging from £800 to £50,000.”
“The various colors of chalcedony have their own names: jasper when brown, carnelian when red or reddish-brown, chrysoprase when green, agate when banded with different colors.”
“It had been chrysoprase, then it turned to aquamarine, and that to the bright full green of an emerald.”
“Kenneth Jay Lane, for example, converted a chrysoprase-and - "diamond" necklace dripping with pearls into a mask for Benedetta Barzini, daughter of the Italian writer Luigi Barzini.”
“Humans can mistake leaf grow stone for chrysoprase, glass, jade, or prase.”
The Lore of Gloranthan Gems and Near-Gems by Martin R. Crim Part II
“Eurmal, the Grain Goddesses, and Saint Xemela hold chrysoprase sacred, a strange combination of gods that vexes the devotees of each.”
The Lore of Gloranthan Gems and Near-Gems by Martin R. Crim Part II
“One can mistake cut and polished chrysoprase for emerald, glass, jade, or prase.”
The Lore of Gloranthan Gems and Near-Gems by Martin R. Crim Part II
“One could mistake cut and polished prase for chrysoprase, growstone, or green jade.”
The Lore of Gloranthan Gems and Near-Gems by Martin R. Crim Part II
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘chrysoprase’.
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Logolepsy
"Luciferous Logolepsy is a collection of over 9,000 obscure English words. Though the definition of an 'English' word might seem to be straightforward, it is not. There exist so many adopted, deriv...
Anschauung, Areopagus, Argus, Briarean, Dei gratia, Dei judicium, Deo volente, Duecento, Foehn, Geflugelte Worte, Gegenschein, Hakenkreuz and 9230 more...
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Fictional music genres
fudgepunk, whangboogie, electrogush, jizzbilly, glambient, queasy listening, chip shop, baroque'n'roll, prog folk, chemo, riant grrl, blingfolk and 556 more...
tbtabby The most dangerous troll in Ankh-Morpork. Feb 8, 2012
chained_bear Wow. This is one beautiful word! And the meaning's not bad either.
I think most words with "chryso-" in them are quite pleasing, and it isn't necessarily because of the sound--because "crisso" is not as pleasant. Oct 18, 2007