In ancient times, the word adamant had various meanings. It was associated with white sapphire, steel, iron, gold, magnets, different hard stones, and especially diamonds. In Old English, it denoted a “very hard stone” in general, and by the 1440s, it evolved to mean “unmovable” or “inflexible” in a figurative sense. The term originates from Latin adamas, which is also the root of our word diamond, derived from Old French diamant. Adamas is derived from an Ancient Greek word with the same spelling meaning “invincible”. It is believed to stem from the prefix a– meaning “not”, and daman meaning “conquer” (thus “a stone that cannot be conquered”), although a Proto-Semitic origin has also been suggested.
