lapidary
A person who cuts and polishes, engraves, or deals in gems and precious stonesA person who cuts and polishes, engraves, or deals in gems and precious stones.
Meaning
5 senses(countable, uncountable)A person who cuts and polishes, engraves, or deals in gems and precious stones.
Edelsteinschleifer, Edelsteinschleiferin
a skilled worker who cuts and engraves precious stones
(countable, uncountable)The field in which such a person works, a subfield of gemology.
(countable, obsolete, uncountable)An expert in gems and precious stones; a connoisseur of lapidary work.
an expert on precious stones and the art of cutting and engraving them
(countable, obsolete, uncountable)Gems and precious stones collectively; jewellery.
(countable, obsolete, uncountable)A treatise on (precious) stones.
лапидарийlapidarij
лапіда́рнийlapidárnyj, лапіда́рністьlapidárnistʹ
Translations
9 languagesBy meaning 1
Origin
The noun is derived from Middle English lapidari, lapidarie (“person who cuts, polishes, oThe noun is derived from Middle English lapidari, lapidarie (“person who cuts, polishes, or engraves precious stones; expert in precious stones; treatise on precious stones”) [and other forms], from Old French lapidaire (“gemsmith, lapidary”) (modern French lapidaire), or from its etymon Latin lapidārius (“(adjective) of stones, stony; (noun) stonecutter”), from lapidis (the genitive singular of lapis (“stone; (poetic) jewel, precious stone”), possibly from Pre-Greek or Proto-Indo-European *lep- (“to peel”)) + -ārius (suffix forming adjectives).
Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0 · source
Forms
plural: lapidaries| Singular | lapidary |
|---|---|
| Plural | lapidaries |
regular
Synonyms
5 synonyms- a skilled worker who cuts and engraves precious stones:lapidist
- an expert on precious stones and the art of cutting and engraving them:lapidarist
Word family
7 related wordsLessons for this word
1 lessons- A1Countable and uncountable nouns — Because it can be uncountable
See also
neighbours in the dictionaryDictionary text adapted from Wiktionary (Wiktionary contributors, CC BY-SA 4.0) and Open English WordNet / Princeton WordNet (CC BY 4.0, WordNet License); shared under CC BY-SA 4.0. Example sentences and recordings are credited where they appear.