Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun An apple-green chalcedony used as a gemstone.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun The ancient name of a golden-green precious stone, now generally believed to have been a variety of the beryl or possibly a green variety of fluor-spar (chlorophane), which possesses the properly of shining in the dark or by the heat of the hand.
- noun A variety of chalcedony commonly apple-green in color and often extremely beautiful, so that it is much esteemed in jewelry.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun (Min.) An apple-green variety of chalcedony, colored by nickel. It has a dull flinty luster, and is sometimes used in jewelry.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun mineralogy A variety of light-
green translucent quartz .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun a green variety of chalcedony valued as a gemstone
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
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Examples
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Poet to dictate blank verse to the pretty young secretary, who curled both feet round one leg of her chair, told him that she "loved his potry more'n anythink she'd ever read" and asked how all the hard words like "chrysoprase" and "asphdel" were spelt.
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Whenever you speak of water, treat it as fire -- of fire, _vice versa_, as water; and be sure to send them all shattering out of reach and discrimination of all sense; and look into a dictionary for some such word as "chrysoprase," which we find to come from χρυσος gold, and πρασον a leek, and means a precious stone; it is capable of being shattered, together with "sunshine" -- the reader will think the whole passage a "flash" of moonshine.
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV. Various
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She makes 50 pieces a year using semiprecious stones such as aquamarines, hessonites, chrysoprase and pink tourmaline, and ranging from £800 to £50,000.
Adding Jewels to Their Crowns Helen Kirwan-Taylor 2011
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The various colors of chalcedony have their own names: jasper when brown, carnelian when red or reddish-brown, chrysoprase when green, agate when banded with different colors.
Quartz 2008
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It had been chrysoprase, then it turned to aquamarine, and that to the bright full green of an emerald.
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Kenneth Jay Lane, for example, converted a chrysoprase-and - "diamond" necklace dripping with pearls into a mask for Benedetta Barzini, daughter of the Italian writer Luigi Barzini.
A Night to Remember Collins, Amy Fine 1996
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Eurmal, the Grain Goddesses, and Saint Xemela hold chrysoprase sacred, a strange combination of gods that vexes the devotees of each.
The Lore of Gloranthan Gems and Near-Gems by Martin R. Crim Part II 1992
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One can mistake cut and polished chrysoprase for emerald, glass, jade, or prase.
The Lore of Gloranthan Gems and Near-Gems by Martin R. Crim Part II 1992
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One could mistake cut and polished prase for chrysoprase, growstone, or green jade.
The Lore of Gloranthan Gems and Near-Gems by Martin R. Crim Part II 1992
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Humans can mistake leaf grow stone for chrysoprase, glass, jade, or prase.
The Lore of Gloranthan Gems and Near-Gems by Martin R. Crim Part II 1992
chained_bear commented on the word chrysoprase
Wow. This is one beautiful word! And the meaning's not bad either.
I think most words with "chryso-" in them are quite pleasing, and it isn't necessarily because of the sound--because "crisso" is not as pleasant.
October 18, 2007
tbtabby commented on the word chrysoprase
The most dangerous troll in Ankh-Morpork.
February 8, 2012
knitandpurl commented on the word chrysoprase
"Sometimes they made islands or great mountains enclosing lakes of deep turquoise-blue, or liquid amber, or chrysoprase-green; sometimes dark headlands jutted into strange, lost seas; sometimes slender strips of wonderful lands joined other wonderful lands together."
A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett
June 28, 2020