adamant

English

Wikipedia

Alternative forms

• adamaunt (obsolete)

Etymology

From Latin adamantem, accusative singular form of adamās (“hard as steel”), from Ancient Greek ἀδάμας (adamas, “invincible”), from ἀ- (a-, “not”) + δαμάζω (damazo, “I tame”).

Pronunciation

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Adjective

adamant (comparative more adamant, superlative most adamant)

1. Firm; unshakeable; unyielding; determined.
   • 2002, Charles Moncrief, Wildcatters: The True Story of how Conspiracy, Greed and the IRS ..., page 195:

     Broiles and Kirkley were adamant about getting out of the lawsuit, but Mike and Dee were equally adamant about not wanting to sign a letter of apology

   • 2006, Cara E. C. Vermaak, Confessions of the Dyslexic Virgin, page 275:

     Johan is determined to play the field and adamant about never committing.

   • 2010, Deeanne Gist, Maid to Match, page 94:

     What good would such foolishness do a mountain man? But Pa had been adamant. Just as he'd been adamant about their reading, writing, numbers, geography, and languages. Just as he'd been adamant about using proper grammar

Synonyms

• See also Wikisaurus:obstinate

Translations

determined; unshakeable; unyielding

• Bulgarian: твърд (bg) (tvǎrd), неподатлив (bg) (nepodatliv), непреклонен (bg) (nepreklonen)
• Czech: neoblomný (cs)
• Dutch: onbuigzaam (nl), onvermurwbaar (nl)
• Finnish: peräänantamaton (fi), järkkymätön (fi)
• French: inflexible (fr), catégorique (fr)
• German: unnachgiebig (de), unerbittlich (de), felsenfest (de)

• Polish: nieustępliwy (pl), zdecydowany (pl) m
• Russian: неподатливый (ru) (nepodátlivyj), непреклонный (ru) (nepreklónnyj), категоричный (ru) (kategoríčnyj), непоколебимый (ru) (nepokolebímyj), твёрдый (ru) (tvjórdyj) (как креме́нь)
• Spanish: firme (es), categórico (es), inflexible (es), impenetrable (es), obstinado (es)

References

• adamant at OneLook Dictionary Search

Noun

adamant (plural adamants)

1. An imaginary rock or mineral of impenetrable hardness; a name given to the diamond and other substances of extreme hardness.
   • 1582, Robert Parsons, chapter 8, The first booke of the Christian exercise, appertayning to resolution^[1], G. Flinton:

     This then is and alwayes hath ben the fashion of Worldlinges, & reprobate persons, to harden their hartes as an adamant stone, against anye thinge that shalbe tolde the for amendement of their lives, and for the savinge of their soules.

1. An embodiment of impregnable hardness.
   • 1956, Arthur C. Clarke, The City and the Stars, p 34

     Unprotected matter, however adamant, would have been ground to dust ages ago.

2. A magnet; a lodestone.
   • 1594–96, William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night's Dream:

     You draw me, you hard-hearted adamant:

     But yet you draw not iron, for all my heart

     Is true as steel. Leave you your power to draw,

     And I shall have no power to follow you.

Translations

a rock or mineral held by some to be of impenetrable hardness; a name given to the diamond and other substances of extreme hardness

• Dutch: adamant (nl)
• Galician: adamantium (gl)
• German: adamant (de)
• Italian: adamantino (it)
• Japanese: 金剛 (ja) (kongō)
• Lithuanian: adamantas (lt)

• Portuguese: adamantino (pt)
• Spanish: adamantino (es)
• Swedish: adamant (sv)
• Tagalog: adamantina (tl)

Derived terms

• adamance n
• adamantane a
• adamantean a
• adamantine a
• adamantly adv

References

• adamant in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913

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Latin

Verb

adamant

1. third-person plural present active indicative of adamō