diamantine

[Sarah]

I would wager it was being used in the sense of diamond, n. 3a (fig):
Something very precious; a thing or person of great worth, or (in mod. use) a person of very brilliant attainments.

1st Pt. Returne fr. Parnassus iii. i. 1043,   I will bestowe upon them the precious stons of my witt, a diamonde of invention.

And, skimming through some French examples from the same time, it seems likely that it was not so much "hard to make sense of" but unsurpassable. Like a diamond, nothing could beat it.


On 2012-04-10, at 5:56 PM, Joel S. Berson wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
> Subject:      Re: diamantine
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> At 4/10/2012 05:41 PM, Wilson Gray wrote:
>
>> On Tue, Apr 10, 2012 at 3:43 PM, Jonathan Lighter
>> <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> most profound and diamantine verse
>>
>> Hard to make sense of?
>
> Wouldn't a speaker who knew how to use "diamantine" figuratively also
> know to use "adamantine"?  (One of whose meanings is "impenetrable".)
>
> With respect to Jon's
>> In any case, no figurative exx. in OED.
>
> the OED does admit "adamantine" has been used figuratively.  As
> recently as 1996.  Perhaps it should give "diamantine" equal time.
>
> Joel
>
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