lapidary

English
WOTD – 4 January 2024

Etymology
A Tanzanian lapidary (noun sense 1) working on tanzanite.
The title page of a 1565 lapidary (noun sense 3.3) by the Swiss naturalist and physician Conrad Gessner.

The 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],[1] 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”))[2] + -ārius (suffix forming adjectives).

Sense 3.2 (“jewellery”) and sense 3.3 (“treatise on precious stones”) are derived from Latin lapidāria or lapidārium, a noun use of the neuter plural or genitive plural respectively of lapidāris (“of stone”, adjective), from lapidis (the genitive singular of lapis; see above) + -āris (suffix forming adjectives).[2]

The adjective is either:

Pronunciation
  • (Received Pronunciation) IPA(key): /ˈlæpɪdəɹi/, /ˈlæpɪdɹi/
  • Audio (Southern England)(file)
  • (General American) IPA(key): /ˈlæpəˌdɛɹi/
  • Hyphenation: la‧pid‧a‧ry

Noun

lapidary (countable and uncountable, plural lapidaries)

  1. A person who cuts and polishes, engraves, or deals in gems and precious stones.
    Synonyms: gemsmith, lapidarist, (obsolete, rare) lapidist
    • 1624 (first performance), John Fletcher, Rule a Wife and Have a Wife. A Comoedy. […], Oxford, Oxfordshire: […] Leonard Lichfield […], published 1640, →OCLC, Act V, scene i, page 56:
      An excellent lapidary ſet theſe ſtones ſure, / Doe you mark their vvaters?
    • 1753, [Tobias Smollett], “He Appears in the Great World with Universal Applause and Admiration”, in The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom. […], volume I, London: […] W. Johnston, […], →OCLC, page 234:
      [T]he method of eſtimating diamonds is altogether arbitrary; and Ratchkali, vvho vvas an exquiſite lapidary, had ſet it in ſuch a manner as vvould have impoſed upon any ordinary jevveller.
    • 2005, P[eter] G. Read, “The Fashioning of Gemstones”, in Gemmology, 3rd edition, Oxford, Oxfordshire, Burlington, Mass.: Elsevier Butterworth-Heinemann, →ISBN, page 252:
      In the very early days of gemstone fashioning, a polisher or lapidary would cut and polish both diamonds and other gemstones. […] Diamonds are now almost exclusively polished by diamond cutting specialists, and all the other gemstones are cut and polished by lapidaries.
  2. The field in which such a person works, a subfield of gemology.
  3. (obsolete)
    1. An expert in gems and precious stones; a connoisseur of lapidary work.
      (expert): Synonyms: gemmologist, gemologist, (obsolete, rare) lapidist
    2. Gems and precious stones collectively; jewellery.
    3. (except historical) A treatise on (precious) stones.

Hyponyms

Derived terms

Translations

Adjective

lapidary (not comparable)

  1. Of or pertaining to gems and precious stones, or the art of working them.
  2. Senses relating to inscriptions.
    1. Of an inscription: engraved on stone.
      • 1791, James Boswell, quoting Samuel Johnson, “[1775]”, in The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. […], volume I, London: […] Henry Baldwin, for Charles Dilly, […], →OCLC, page 514:
        The vvriter of an epitaph ſhould not be conſidered as ſaying nothing but vvhat is ſtrictly true. Allovvance muſt be made for ſome degree of exaggerated praiſe. In lapidary inſcriptions a man is not upon oath.
      • 1822 October 15, Quevedo Redivivus [pseudonym; Lord Byron], “The Vision of Judgment”, in The Liberal. Verse and Prose from the South, 2nd edition, volume I, number I, London: […] John Hunt, […], published 1823, →OCLC, stanza XII, page 7:
        He's dead—and upper earth with him has done: / He's buried; save the undertaker's bill, / Or lapidary scrawl, the world is gone / For him, […]
    2. Of a piece of writing or a writing style: characteristic of or suitable for an inscription; embodying the precision and refinement of inscriptions on monuments; concise and stately.
      Synonyms: see Thesaurus:concise
      Antonyms: see Thesaurus:verbose
      • 1831, Thomas Carlyle, “Getting Under Way”, in Sartor Resartus: The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdröckh. […], London: Chapman and Hall, […], →OCLC, book second, page 91:
        His grand principle is, that lapidary inscriptions, of what sort soever, should be Historical rather than Lyrical.
      • 1839, Henry Hallam, “History of Physical and Miscellaneous Literature from 1500 to 1600”, in Introduction to the Literature of Europe, in the Fifteenth, Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, volume II, London: John Murray, […], →OCLC, section VII (General State of Literature), paragraph 64, page 503:
        They were the encouragers of a numismatic and lapidary erudition, elegant in itself, and throwing for ever its little sparks of light on the still ocean of the past, but not very favourable to comprehensive observation, and tending to bestow on an unprofitable pedantry the honours of real learning.
      • 2000, Karen Armstrong, “Christians: Brave New World (1492–1870)”, in The Battle for God (A Ballantine Book), New York, N.Y.: The Random House Publishing Group, published February 2001, →ISBN, part 1 (The Old World and the New), page 71:
        A man of the new age, he [René Descartes] would not accept received ideas; the scientist must make his mind a tabula rasa. The sole truth was that supplied by mathematics or by such lapidary propositions as "What's done cannot be undone," which was irrefutably correct.
  3. (archaic, rare) Of or pertaining to stones in general.
    • 1831 June, Thomas De Quincey, “Whiggism in Its Relations to Literature”, in Sketches: Critical and Biographic (De Quincey’s Works; VI), London: James Hogg & Sons, →OCLC, page 164:
      Yet such is the temper of this world, that, if a grave philosopher, by shaking his fist, and other acts of bravado, should happen to provoke a company of mischievous boys to reply with a shower of stones, people in general suffer their resentment to settle upon the philosopher for his wanton provocation, rather than on the boys for that lapidary style of retort in which their wrath has been trained to express itself.

Translations

References
  1. “lapidārī(e, n.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.
  2. “lapidary, adj. and n.”, in OED Online Paid subscription required⁠, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, September 2023; “lapidary, adj. and n.”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.

Further reading
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