demantoid

Why this word is great

DEMANTOID — [Noun] A green variety of garnet prized for its diamond-like brilliance. From German Demantoid, from obsolete German Demant ("diamond") + -oid ("resembling"), with Demant derived from Middle High German diemant, from Old French diamant. Unlike "olivine" (a silicate masquerading as kin) or "andradite" (its broader, less luminous parent species), demantoid is the aristocrat of garnets, singular in its verdant glow. It is the glint of sunlight through young beech leaves, the emerald flash of a dragonfly’s wing, the cold, hard sparkle of frost on a midnight window—proof that nature’s most fleeting greens can be trapped, still shimmering, in stone.