adamant的词源
英文词源
- adamant
- adamant: [14] In Greek, adamas meant ‘unbreakable, invincible’. It was formed from the verb daman ‘subdue, break down’ (which came from the same source as English tame) plus the negative prefix a-. It developed a noun usage as a ‘hard substance’, specifically ‘diamond’ or ‘very hard metal’, and this passed into Latin as adamāns, or, in its stem form, adamant-. Hence Old French adamaunt, and eventually English adamant.
=> diamond, tame - adamant (adj.)
- late 14c., "hard, unbreakable," from adamant (n.). Figurative sense of "unshakeable" first recorded 1670s. Related: Adamantly; adamance.
- adamant (n.)
- mid-14c., from Old French adamant and directly from Latin adamantem (nominative adamas) "adamant, hardest iron, steel," also figuratively, of character, from Greek adamas (genitive adamantos) "unbreakable, inflexible" metaphoric of anything unalterable, also the name of a hypothetical hardest material, perhaps literally "invincible," from a- "not" + daman "to conquer, to tame" (see tame (adj.)), or else a word of foreign origin altered to conform to Greek.
Applied in antiquity to a metal resembling gold (Plato), white sapphire, magnet (by Ovid, perhaps via confusion with Latin adamare "to love passionately"), steel, emery stone, and especially diamond (see diamond). "The name has thus always been of indefinite and fluctuating sense" [Century Dictionary]. The word was in Old English as aðamans "a very hard stone."
中文词源
发音释义：['ædəmənt] adj. 固执的，坚强的；坚定不移的；坚硬无比的n. 坚硬的东西；坚石
结构分析：adamant = a（不）+daman（征服）+ t →不可征服的→坚硬无比的
词源解释：daman←希腊语daman（征服、驯服）
背景知识：古希腊人最早接触钻石时，发现钻石特别坚硬，因此将其命名为adamas（钻石），该词后来辗转演变为英语单词adamant（坚硬无比的）和diamond（钻石）。
同源词： diamond（钻石），tame（驯服）
该词的英语词源请访问趣词词源英文版：adamant 词源，adamant 含义。
前缀a-, 无，不。词根dam, 同tame,驯服。无法驯服的，坚定的。diamond,钻石，词源同。
早在乔叟时代adamant一词就已是英语的一分子。它源于希腊语adamas（最坚硬的金属），但却借自古法语adamaunt（最坚硬的石头）。因此，有好几个世纪adamant一直被作为diamond（金刚石）的同义词使用（其实两者系同源词）。它被广泛用作形容词，表示“坚硬的”、“坚决的”等义则是20世纪30、40年代以后的事。
a-为否定前缀；词根dam表“征服，驯服”，比如tame（驯服的）就和它是同源词；-ant为形容词后缀；所以它的字面意思就是“不可征服的”，引申为意志的“坚定不移”。有趣的是，单词diamond（金刚石；钻石）是它的变体，由意志的坚定引申为质地的坚硬。
