What is in a Name?
Nowadays diamond symbolizes wealth, durability, status, and peerless quality. Across time and cultures, diamond has also been related with invulnerability, lightning, magic, healing, protection, and poisoning. In separating the history and associations of diamond, we also need to know the history of the words attached to it: Did the words used by the ancient Indians or Greeks indicate the same thing they do today, or something very different?
"Diamond" derived from the Greek adamao, transliterated as "adamao," "I tame" or "I subdue." The adjective "adamas" was used to describe the hardest substance known, and finally became synonymous with diamond. It is difficult to establish at what point in history the hardest known substance become diamond. "Adamas" may have previously referred to the next hardest mineral, corundum -- the gem variety is sapphire -- or to something else in total. Tracing the history of diamond is difficult by this problem with names.
Arabic
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Old English
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