Dictionary:
lap·i·dar·y (lăp'ĭ-dĕr'ē)  |
[Middle English lapidarie, from Old French lapidaire, from Latin lapidārius, from lapis, lapid-, stone.]
| Word Overheard: lapidary |
Using fewer words will help people remember what you say, but using more may sometimes help them understand what you mean. So says the ever-articulate George F. Will in a discussion of US public employees and their right to free speech. Here, the opposite of lapidary might be
"In 1892, when First Amendment jurisprudence was in its infancy, Oliver Wendell Holmes, then a justice on the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, said that a policeman 'may have a constitutional right to talk politics, but he has no constitutional right to be a policeman.' Holmes had a flair for aphorisms, the clarity of which sometimes gave them excessive sweep. What he meant in the case of a policeman fired for collecting money for a political committee was that government has a right, for reasons of efficiency, to discipline an officer for speech that, had it been made by a private citizen, would have had constitutional protection.
"In subsequent cases, the U.S. Supreme Court, less lapidary than Holmes but more helpful, modified his doctrine that public employees have no right to contest conditions placed on the terms of their employment, even terms that restrict the exercise of constitutional rights. The court enunciated two standards by which some government workplace speech acquires protection that prevents retaliation by the speaker's superiors."
Link: Townhall.com :: Columns :: A new justice matters by George Will - Jun 4, 2006.
Posted June 5, 2006.
See our Word Overheard blog to see interesting uses of strange words. 
| Literary Dictionary: lapidary |
lapidary, suitable for engraving in stone. A lapidary inscription is one that is actually carved in stone, while a style of writing—especially in verse—may be called lapidary if it has the dignity or the concision expected of such inscriptions, or otherwise deserves to be passed on to posterity. As a noun, the term also applies to a book about gems, or to a jeweller. See also epigram.
| Obscure Words: lapidary |
| Word Tutor: lapidary |
A world famous lapidary was hired to cut the large and very expensive diamond.
| Wikipedia: Lapidary |
A lapidary (the word means "concerned with stones") is an artist or artisan who forms stone, mineral, gemstones, and other suitably durable materials (amber, shell, jet, pearl, copal, coral, horn and bone, glass and other synthetics) into decorative items such as engraved gems, including cameos, or cabochons, and faceted designs. Hardstone carving is the term in art history for the objects produced and the craft. An overview of the art history of the subject is given there. Diamond cutters are generally not referred to as lapidaries, due to the specialized techniques which are required to work diamond. Gemcutter typically refers to diamond cutters or producers of faceted jewels in modern contexts, but artists' producing engraved gems, jade carvings and the like in older historical contexts.
The arts of a sculptor or stonemason do not generally fall within the definition, though chiseling inscriptions in stone, and preparing laboratory 'thin sections' may be considered lapidary arts. But, figurative engraved gems and cameos are certainly the work of artists. In modern contexts, the term is most commonly associated with jewelry and decorative household items (e.g. bookends, clock faces, ornaments, etc.) A specialized form of lapidary work is the inlaying of marble and gemstones into a marble matrix, known in English as "pietra dura" for the hardstones like onyx, jasper and carnelian that are used, but called in Florence and Naples, where the technique was developed in the 16th century, opere di commessi. The Medici Chapel at San Lorenzo in Florence is completely veneered with inlaid hard stones. The specialty of "micromosaics", developed from the late 18th century in Naples and Rome, in which minute slivers of glass are assembled to create still life, cityscape views and the like, is sometimes covered under the umbrella term of lapidary.
In China, lapidary work specializing in jade carving has been continuous since at least the Shang dynasty.
Apart from figurative carving, there are three broad categories of lapidary arts. These are the procedures of tumbling, cabochon cutting, and faceting. The distinction is somewhat loose, and leaves a broad range within the term cabochon. The picture to the left is of a rural, commercial cutting operation in Thailand. This small factory cuts thousands of carats of sapphire annually.
Most lapidary work is done using motorized equipment and resin or metal bonded diamond tooling in successively decreasing particle sizes until a polish is achieved. Often, the final polish will use a different medium, such as tin oxide, glasitite or cerium(IV) oxide. Older techniques, still popular with hobbyists, used bonded grinding wheels of silicon carbide, with only using a diamond tipped saw. Diamond cutting, because of the extreme hardness of diamonds, cannot be done with silicon carbide, and requires the use of diamond tools.
There are also many other forms of lapidary, not just cutting and polishing stones and gemstones. These include: casting, faceting, carving, jewellery, mosaics (eg. little slices of opal on potch, obsidian or another black stone and with a clear dome (glass or crystal quartz) on top. There are lapidary clubs throughout the world. In Australia there are numerous gemshows including an annual gemshow, the Gemborree which is a nation-wide lapidary competition. There is a collection of gem and mineral shows held in Tucson, Arizona, at the beginning of February each year. This group of shows constitutes the largest gem and mineral event in the world. The event was originally started with the Tucson Gem and Mineral Society Show and has now grown to include dozens of other independent shows.
A secondary meaning of lapidary is pertaining to, about, "of inscriptions." Since inscriptions were laboriously chiselled to stone, a "lapidary" writing style is crisp, accurate, formal, and condensed.
Another meaning is a treatise on the subject of precious stones, one example being the so-called Old English Lapidary, a tenth or eleventh-century translation into Anglo-Saxon of earlier Latin glosses on stones mentioned in The Book of Revelation.
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| Translations: Lapidary |
Dansk (Danish)
adj. - indhugget i sten, lapidarisk, kort og fyndigt, stærkt og fyndigt
n. - stensliber, stenskærer, kender af ædle stene
Nederlands (Dutch)
(edel)steenslijper, inscriptie in steen, handelaar/kenner etc. van edelstenen, het bewerken van edelstenen, lapidair, betreffende (edel)steen, uit/in steen gehouwen, monumenteel
Français (French)
adj. - lapidaire
n. - lapidaire
Deutsch (German)
n. - Edelsteinschneider
adj. - in Stein gehauen, lapidar
Ελληνική (Greek)
n. - λιθοχαράκτης
adj. - πέτρινος, χαραγμένος στην πέτρα
Português (Portuguese)
n. - lapidário (m), joalheiro (m)
adj. - lapidário
Русский (Russian)
гранильщик камней, гранильный, лапидарный
Español (Spanish)
adj. - lapidario
n. - lapidario
Svenska (Swedish)
n. - kännare av ädelstenar, ädelstensslipare, ädelstensgravör
adj. - som huggen i sten, korthuggen, koncis
中文（简体）(Chinese (Simplified))
石的, 宝石的, 石刻的, 宝石工艺匠, 宝石鉴定家
中文（繁體）(Chinese (Traditional))
adj. - 石的, 寶石的, 石刻的
n. - 寶石工藝匠, 寶石鑒定家
한국어 (Korean)
adj. - 보석 세공의 , 정교한, 돌의
n. - 보석 세공인, 보석 세공술 , 보석 감정가
日本語 (Japanese)
n. - 玉造り, 宝石細工術, 宝石細工師
adj. - 石の, 石に刻んだ, 碑文体の, 宝石細工の
العربيه (Arabic)
(الاسم) صاقل أو ناقش الحجارة الكريمه, فن قطع وهندسه الحجارة الكريمه (صفه) منقوش على الحجر, متعلق بالحجارة الكريمه أو بفن قطعها وهندستها
עברית (Hebrew)
adj. - חקוק באבן, חרות, של אבנ/ים, מכובד וקצר (סיגנון כתיבה)
n. - לוטש יהלומים, יהלומן
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| Shopping: lapidary |
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| culet (lapidary) |
| gem stick (lapidary) |
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 | Dictionary. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. Read more |
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| Literary Dictionary. The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms. Copyright © Chris Baldick 2001, 2004. All rights reserved. Read more |
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| Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Lapidary". Read more |
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