adamant means firm; unshakeable; unyielding; determined.
adamant is pronounced /ˈæd.ə.mənt/.
Why “adamant” is a great word
Refusing to be persuaded or to change one's mind; unyielding in attitude or opinion. From Middle English *adamant*, *adamaunt*, from Latin *adamantem* (accusative of *adamas*, meaning “hard as steel”), from Ancient Greek ἀδάμας (*adámas*, “invincible, untamable”). Unlike “obdurate,” which implies a morally hardened resistance, or “steadfast,” which suggests a virtuous constancy, “adamant” is the sheer, unalloyed quality of the refusal itself. It is the set of a jaw under pressure, the bolted door that withstands the shoulder, the cliff face that refuses the sea—a mineral purity of will against the relentless weathering of reason and plea, the self as something finally, irrevocably decided.
Etymology
From Middle English adamant, adamaunt, from Latin adamantem, accusative singular form of adamās (“hard as steel”), from Ancient Greek ἀδάμαντ- (adámant-, “invincible”), oblique stem of ἀδάμας (adámas). Doublet of diamond.
adj
- Firm; unshakeable; unyielding; determined.e.g.“Broiles and Kirkley were adamant about getting out of the lawsuit, but Mike and Dee were equally adamant about not wanting to sign a letter of apology” — 2002, Charles Moncrief, Wildcatters: The True Story of how Conspiracy, Greed and the IRS ..., page 195:
- Very difficult to break, pierce, or cut.e.g.“Unprotected matter, however adamant, would have been ground to dust ages ago.” — 1956, Arthur C. Clarke, The City and the Stars, page 34:
noun
- An unspecified mineral or rock of virtually impenetrable hardness.
- An unspecified mineral or rock of virtually impenetrable hardness.; In later use: diamond.
- An unspecified mineral or rock of virtually impenetrable hardness.; In later use: a lodestone.e.g.“You draw me, you hard-hearted adamant: / But yet you draw not iron, for all my heart / Is true as steel. Leave you your power to draw, / And I shall have no power to follow you.” — c. 1595–1596 (date written), William Shakespeare, “A Midsommer Nights Dreame”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies (First Fol
- An unspecified mineral or rock of virtually impenetrable hardness.; A substance that neutralizes lodestones.e.g.“An Adamant hinders the attractive vertue, as also Garlick rubbed on the Magnet; for its attractive faculty is not so valid, but it may be easily deluded, obscured, and superated […]” — 1657 [1608], Jean de Renou, translated by Richard Tomlinson, A Medicinal Dispensatory […], page 418:
- Chiefly in of adamant: an embodiment of impenetrable hardness; the quality of not being easily destroyed or overcome; impenetrableness, imperviousness, impregnableness; also, of a person: the quality of not being easily affected emotionally; impassiveness, unmovableness.e.g.“Actual life might seem to her so real that she could not detect the union of shadow and adamant that men call poetry.” — 1907 April, E[dward] M[organ] Forster, chapter XV, in The Longest Journey, Edinburgh; London: William Blackwood and Sons, →OCLC:
- A person or thing having the quality of attracting or drawing; a lodestone, a magnet.
Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
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