pearl

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. A smooth, lustrous, variously colored deposit, chiefly calcium carbonate, formed around a grain of sand or other foreign matter in the shells of certain mollusks and valued as a gem.
2. n. Mother-of-pearl; nacre.
3. n. One that is highly regarded for its beauty or value.
4. n. Printing A type size measuring approximately five points.
5. n. A yellowish white.
6. v. To decorate or cover with or as if with pearls.
7. v. To make into the shape or color of pearls.
8. v. To dive or fish for pearls or pearl-bearing mollusks.
9. v. To form beads resembling pearls.
10. v. Variant of purl².

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. A nacreous concretion, or separate mass of nacre, of hard, smooth, lustrous texture, and a rounded, oval, pear-shaped, or irregular figure, secreted within the shells of various bivalve mollusks as a result of the irritation caused by the presence of some foreign body, as a grain of sand, within the mantle-lobes. The formation of a pearl is an abnormal or morbid process, comparable to that by which any foreign body, as a bullet, may become encysted in animal tissues and so cease to cause further irritation. In the case of the mollusks which yield pearls, the deposition is of the same substance as the nacre which lines the shell, hence called mother-of-pearl, in successive layers upon the offending particle. Fine pearls have frequently been found in working the mother-of-pearl shell. Chemically, pearls consist of calcium carbonate interstratified with animal substance, and are hence easily dissolved by acids or destroyed by heat. The chief sources of the supply of pearls are the pearl-oysters and pearl-mussels, Aviculidæ and Unionidæ, and foremost among the former is the pearl-oyster of Indian seas, Meleagrina margaritifera. Pearls are generally of a satiny, silvery, or bluish-white color, but also pink, copper-colored, purple, yellow, gray, smoky-brown, and black. The finest white pearls are from Ceylon, the Persian Gulf, Thursday Island, and the western coast of Australia. The yellow are from Panama. The finest black and gray pearls are obtained in the Gulf of California, along the entire coast from Lower California to the lower part of Mexico. There are two distinct varieties of pink pearl: those from the common conch-shell, Strombus gigas, of the West Indies, and those from the unios or fresh mussels found in Scotland, Germany, France, and the United States (the finest being obtained principally from Ohio, Tennessee, Kentucky, Texas, and Wisconsin), also from the small marine shell Trigona pectonensis of Australia. Purple, light-blue, and black pearls are found in the common clam, Venus mercenaria. The yellow color of Oriental pearls generally results from the decomposition of the mollusks in which they are found. The value of a pearl depends entirely on its perfection of form (which, must be either round, pear-shaped, or a perfect oval), on its luster or “orient,” and on the purity of its color, a tint of yellow or gray detracting very much from the value. Pearls are sold by the pearl-grain, four grains equaling one carat. (See carat, n., 4.) From 1880 to 1890 the demand for pearls and the rarity of their occurrence resulted in an advance in price of from 250 to 300 per cent, the larger pearls having advanced more, proportionally, than the smaller ones. Until about 1865, pearls were generally valued as multiples of a grain. The value of a pearl larger than one grain was estimated by squaring its weight and multiplying this by the value of a one-grain pearl: thus, a two-grain and a five-grain pearl were worth respectively 4 and 25 times the value-of a one-grain pearl.
2. n. Anything very valuable; the choicest or best part; a jewel; the finest of its kind.
3. n. Something round and clear, as a drop of water or dew; any small granule or globule resembling a pearl; specifically, in pharmacy, a small pill or pellet containing or consisting of some medicinal substance.
4. n. A white speck or film growing on the eye; cataract.
5. n. Mother-of-pearl; nacre: as, a pearl button.
6. n. A size of printing-type, about 15 lines to the inch, intermediate between the larger size agate and the smaller size diamond: it is equal to 5 points, and is so distinguished in the new system of sizes.
7. n. This line is printed in pearl.
8. n. In heraldry: A small ball argent, not only as a bearing but as part of a coronet.
9. n. The color white.
10. n. One of the bony tubercles which form a rough circle round the base of a deer's antler, called collectively the bur.
11. n. In entomology, a name of many pyralid moths; any pearl-moth.
12. n. A fish, the prill or brill: perhaps so called from the light spots, otherwise probably a transposed form of prill.
13. n. Eccles., a name sometimes given to a particle of the consecrated wafer: still current in the Oriental Church.
14. n. A name given by gilders and manufacturers of jewelry to granules of metal produced by melting it to extreme fluidity, and then pouring it into cold water. The stream in pouring should be so small, and the crucible held at such a distance from the water, that the metal will break up into fine drops (pearls) before reaching the water, which instantly cools them. The cooled granules are usually pear-shaped The epithet granulated is more commonly applied in the United States to metals prepared in this way, as granulated copper, silver, zinc, etc., used in the preparation of jewelers' alloys on account of their convenience in weighing, and for other purposes—pure granulated zinc being much employed by chemists fur generating pure hydrogen gas, as in Marsh's test for arsenic, etc.
15. n. In lace- and ribbon-making, one of the loops which form the outer edge. Also purl.
16. n. In decorative art. See purl.
17. To adorn, set, or stud with pearls.
18. To make into a form, or to cause to assume an appearance, resembling that of pearls: as, to pearl barley (by rubbing off the pulp and grinding the berries to a rounded shape); to pearl comfits (by causing melted sugar to harden around the kernels, thus forming small rounded pellets).
19. To resemble pearls.
20. To take a rounded form, as a drop of liquid: as, quicksilver pearls when dropped in small quantities.
21. To assume a resemblance to pearls, or the shape of pearls, as barley or comfits.
22. n. In ship-rigging, one of the bull's-eye rollers strung on the round iron band which spans the forward part of the gaff on fore-and-aft vessels, and which assist in the smooth hoisting of the spar, as well as confining it to the mast.

Wiktionary

1. n. A shelly concretion, usually rounded, and having a brilliant luster, with varying tints, found in the mantle, or between the mantle and shell, of certain bivalve mollusks, especially in the pearl oysters and river mussels, and sometimes in certain univalves. It is usually due to a secretion of shelly substance around some irritating foreign particle. Its substance is the same as nacre, or mother-of-pearl. Pearls which are round, or nearly round, and of fine luster, are highly esteemed as jewels, and compare in value with the precious stones.
2. n. figuratively Something precious.
3. n. A capsule of gelatin or similar substance containing liquid for e.g. medicinal application.
4. n. Nacre, or mother-of-pearl.
5. n. A whitish speck or film on the eye.
6. n. A fish allied to the turbot; the brill.
7. n. A light-colored tern.
8. n. One of the circle of tubercles which form the bur on a deer's antler.
9. n. typography Five-point size of type, between agate and diamond.
10. n. A fringe or border.
11. v. To set or adorn with pearls, or with mother-of-pearl. Used also figuratively.
12. v. To cause to resemble pearls; to make into small round grains; as, to pearl barley.
13. v. To resemble pearl or pearls.
14. v. To give or hunt for pearls; as, to go pearling.
15. v. surfing to dig the nose of one's surfboard into the water, often on takeoff.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. obsolete A fringe or border.
2. n. (Zoöl.) A shelly concretion, usually rounded, and having a brilliant luster, with varying tints, found in the mantle, or between the mantle and shell, of certain bivalve mollusks, especially in the pearl oysters and river mussels, and sometimes in certain univalves. It is usually due to a secretion of shelly substance around some irritating foreign particle. Its substance is the same as nacre, or mother-of-pearl.
3. n. Hence, figuratively, something resembling a pearl; something very precious.
4. n. Nacre, or mother-of-pearl.
5. n. (Zoöl.) A fish allied to the turbot; the brill.
6. n. (Zoöl.) A light-colored tern.
7. n. (Zoöl.) One of the circle of tubercles which form the bur on a deer's antler.
8. n. obsolete A whitish speck or film on the eye.
9. n. A capsule of gelatin or similar substance containing some liquid for medicinal application, as ether.
10. n. (Print.) A size of type, between agate and diamond.
11. adj. Of or pertaining to pearl or pearls; made of pearls, or of mother-of-pearl.
12. v. To set or adorn with pearls, or with mother-of-pearl. Used also figuratively.
13. v. To cause to resemble pearls; to make into small round grains.
14. v. To resemble pearl or pearls.
15. v. To dive or hunt for pearls.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. a shade of white the color of bleached bones
2. n. a smooth lustrous round structure inside the shell of a clam or oyster; much valued as a jewel
3. v. gather pearls, from oysters in the ocean
4. n. a shape that is spherical and small