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Webster 1913 Edition

Adamant

Ad′a-mant

(ăd′ȧ-mănt)
,
Noun.
[OE.
adamaunt
,
adamant
, diamond, magnet, OF.
adamant
, L.
adamas
,
adamantis
, the hardest metal, fr. Gr.
ἀδάμας
,
-αντος
;
ἀ
priv. +
δαμᾶ,ν
to tame, subdue. In OE., from confusion with L.
adamare
to love, be attached to, the word meant also
magnet
, as in OF. and LL. See
Diamond
,
Tame
.]
1.
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.
Opposed the rocky orb
Of tenfold
adamant
, his ample shield.
Milton.
2.
Lodestone; magnet.
[Obs.]
“A great adamant of acquaintance.”
Bacon.
As true to thee as steel to
adamant
.
Greene.

Webster 1828 Edition

Adamant

AD'AMANT

,
Noun.
[ Gr.; L. adamas; a word of Celtic origin.]
A very hard or impenetrable stone; a name given to the diamond and other substances of extreme hardness. The name has often been given to the load stone; but in modern mineralogy, it has no technical signification.

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