adamant
pronunciation
How to pronounce adamant in British English:
UK [ˈædəmənt]
How to pronounce adamant in American English:
US [ˈædəmənt, -ˌmænt]
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- Noun:
- very hard native crystalline carbon valued as a gem
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- Adjective:
- not capable of being swayed or diverted from a course; unsusceptible to persuasion
Word Origin
- adamant
- adamant: [14] In Greek, adamas meant ‘unbreakable, invincible’. It was formed from the verb daman ‘subdue, break down’ (which came from the same source as English tame) plus the negative prefix a-. It developed a noun usage as a ‘hard substance’, specifically ‘diamond’ or ‘very hard metal’, and this passed into Latin as adamāns, or, in its stem form, adamant-. Hence Old French adamaunt, and eventually English adamant.=> diamond, tame
- adamant (adj.)
- late 14c., "hard, unbreakable," from adamant (n.). Figurative sense of "unshakeable" first recorded 1670s. Related: Adamantly; adamance.
- adamant (n.)
- mid-14c., from Old French adamant and directly from Latin adamantem (nominative adamas) "adamant, hardest iron, steel," also figuratively, of character, from Greek adamas (genitive adamantos) "unbreakable, inflexible" metaphoric of anything unalterable, also the name of a hypothetical hardest material, perhaps literally "invincible," from a- "not" + daman "to conquer, to tame" (see tame (adj.)), or else a word of foreign origin altered to conform to Greek. Applied in antiquity to a metal resembling gold (Plato), white sapphire, magnet (by Ovid, perhaps via confusion with Latin adamare "to love passionately"), steel, emery stone, and especially diamond (see diamond). "The name has thus always been of indefinite and fluctuating sense" [Century Dictionary]. The word was in Old English as aðamans "a very hard stone."
Synonym
Example
- 1. Yet the kurds are equally adamant .
- 2. The current u.s. administration is adamant about restricting travel to cuba .
- 3. These officials declined to elaborate on the individual 's whereabouts , citing ongoing operations , but were adamant tuesday he poses no security threat .
- 4. They are adamant about buying only organic food .
- 5. With germany equally adamant about the risks to the world of us policy , us officials will face some tough questioning in seoul later this week .