Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A clear hard variety of corundum used as a gemstone that is usually blue but may be any color except red.
  • noun A corundum gem.
  • noun The blue color of a gem sapphire.
  • adjective Made of or resembling a gem sapphire.
  • adjective Having the color of a blue sapphire.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A precious stone next in hardness to the diamond, and nearly as valuable when of fine quality: a variety of the mineral corundum.
  • noun The color of the sapphire; blue.
  • noun In heraldry, a tincture, the color blue, in blazoning by means of precious stones. Compare blazon, n., 2.
  • noun In ornithology, a sapphirewing.
  • Resembling sapphire; of a deep brilliant blue.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective Of or resembling sapphire; sapphirine; blue.
  • noun (Min.) Native alumina or aluminium sesquioxide, Al2O3; corundum; esp., the blue transparent variety of corundum, highly prized as a gem.
  • noun The color of the gem; bright blue.
  • noun (Zoöl.) Any humming bird of the genus Hylocharis, native of South America. The throat and breast are usually bright blue.
  • noun (Min.) a kind of sapphire which exhibits asterism.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun a clear deep blue variety of corundum, valued as a precious stone.
  • noun a white, yellow, or purple variety of corundum, either clear or translucent.
  • noun a deep blue colour.
  • noun a type of South American hummingbird.
  • adjective of a deep blue colour.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a transparent piece of sapphire that has been cut and polished and is valued as a precious gem
  • noun a light shade of blue
  • noun a precious transparent stone of rich blue corundum valued as a gemstone
  • adjective of something having the color of a blue sapphire

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English saphir, from Old French safir, from Latin sapphīrus, from Greek sappheiros, of Semitic origin; akin to Hebrew sappîr, a precious stone.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Old French saphir, from Latin sapphirus, from Ancient Greek ἡ σάπφειρος (hē sáppheiros, "precious stone, gem") (2nd decl.; transliterated /sápfiros/ in Biblos - Strong's Greek, entry 4552, sometimes spelt σάμφειρος in Griechisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch or unusually hyphened as σάπ-φειρος by Leander van Ess in "Hē palaia diathēkē kata tous hebdomēkonta" published in 1835), from a Semitic language (compare Hebrew סַפִּיר (sappir) (cf. Strong's Concordance: entry 5601, probably ultimately from a non-Semitic source such as Sanskrit शनिप्रिय (śanipriya, "dear to Saturn") and dark-coloured stone (cf. Sanskrit Dictionary for Spoken Sanskrit).

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Examples

Comments

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  • Suggested replacement for “lesbian�? should the vexatious litigants of Lesbos win. see Sappho.

    June 11, 2008

  • Genius!

    June 11, 2008

  • I like it. It's all...jewel-y. :-)

    June 12, 2008