One vice but of a minute old, for one
Not half so old as that. I’ll write against them,
Detest them, curse them.
Shakespeare, Cymbeline, act ii. sc. 5.
Diamond. This, or ‘diamant’ as it used to be spelt, is a popular form of ‘adamant.’ The Greek ἀδάμας, originally used of the hardest steel, was, about the time of Theophrastus, and, so far as we know, first in his writings, transferred to the diamond, as itself also of a hardness not to be subdued; the cutting or polishing of this stone being quite a modern invention; and the Latin ‘adamas’ continued through the Middle Ages to bear this double meaning. But if ‘adamant’ meant diamond, then ‘diamond,’ by a reactive process frequent in language, would be employed for adamant as well. So far as I know, Milton is the last writer who so uses it.
Have harte as hard as diamaunt,
Stedfast, and nauht pliaunt.
Romaunt of the Rose.
This little care and regard did at length melt and break asunder those strong diamond chains with which Dionysius the elder made his boast that he left his tyranny chained to his son.—North, Plutarch’s Lives, 1656, p. 800.
But wordes and lookes and sighes she did abhore,