chatoyment · noun — changeableness of color, as in a mineral; play of colors. It carries an Arena rating of 1727, earned across 39 head-to-head judged battles.
Definition from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, chatoyment ranks #467 of 17,172 for Most Beautiful Words, #1,227 of 17,177 for Most Whimsical Words, #2,005 of 17,195 for Most Exacting Words, #2,073 of 17,197 for Best Fossil-Poetry Words.
Why “chatoyment” is a great word
CHATOYMENT — [Noun] A changeable, silky play of colors, especially a single shifting band of light, as exhibited in certain gemstones. From French chatoiement, from chatoyer ("to shimmer like a cat's eye"), from chat ("cat") + -oyer (verb-forming suffix). Unlike iridescence, which denotes a precise, rainbow-like diffraction, or opalescence, which implies a soft, milky diffusion, chatoyment is a sharper, more predatory shimmer—a solitary luminous ribbon adrift in the stone's depths. It is the liquid gleam sliding along a tiger's-eye cabochon, the secret flash in a spool of raw silk, or the phantom ember caught in a chrysoberyl cat's-eye as the stone turns in the hand: a solid thing holding a captive glance, forever on the verge of looking back.
❧ Essay by Lexicurio’s AI · definition, etymology & citations from published sources
Etymology
From French chatoiement. See chatoyant.
noun
- Changeableness of color, as in a mineral; play of colors.
Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
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