throat of our first parent. — Adam's flannel (Bot.), the mullein — Adam's needle (Bot.), the popular
name of a genus (Yucca) of liliaceous plants.
Adamant
(Ad"a*mant) n. [OE. adamaunt, adamant, diamond, magnet, OF. adamant, L. adamas,
adamantis, the hardest metal, fr. Gr. 'ada`mas, -antos; 'a priv. + dama^,n to tame, subdue. In OE.,
from confusion with L. adamare to love, be attached to, the word meant also magnet, as in OF. and LL.
See Diamond, Tame.]
1. A stone imagined by some to be of impenetrable hardness; a name given to the diamond and other
substances of extreme hardness; but in modern mineralogy it has no technical signification. It is now a
rhetorical or poetical name for the embodiment of impenetrable hardness.
Opposed the rocky orb
Of tenfold adamant, his ample shield.
Milton.
2. Lodestone; magnet. [Obs.] "A great adamant of acquaintance." Bacon.
As true to thee as steel to adamant.
Greene.
Adamantean
(Ad`a*man*te"an) a. [L. adamanteus.] Of adamant; hard as adamant. Milton.
Adamantine
(Ad`a*man"tine) a. [L. adamantinus, Gr. .]
1. Made of adamant, or having the qualities of adamant; incapable of being broken, dissolved, or penetrated; as,
adamantine bonds or chains.
2. (Min.) Like the diamond in hardness or luster.
Adambulacral
(Ad`am*bu*la"cral) a. [L. ad + E. ambulacral.] (Zoöl.) Next to the ambulacra; as, the
adambulacral ossicles of the starfish.
Adamic
(A*dam"ic A*dam"ic*al) a. Of or pertaining to Adam, or resembling him.
Adamic earth, a name given to common red clay, from a notion that Adam means red earth.
Adamite
(Ad"am*ite) n. [From Adam.]
1. A descendant of Adam; a human being.
2. (Eccl. Hist.) One of a sect of visionaries, who, professing to imitate the state of Adam, discarded
the use of dress in their assemblies.
Adam's apple
(Ad"am's ap"ple) See under Adam.
Adance
(A*dance") adv. Dancing. Lowell.
Adangle
(A*dan"gle) adv. Dangling. Browning.
Adansonia
(||Ad`an*so"ni*a) n. [From Adanson, a French botanist.] (Bot.) A genus of great trees
related to the Bombax. There are two species, A. digitata, the baobab or monkey-bread of Africa and
India, and A. Gregorii, the sour gourd or cream-of-tartar tree of Australia. Both have a trunk of moderate
height, but of enormous diameter, and a wide-spreading head. The fruit is oblong, and filled with pleasantly
acid pulp. The wood is very soft, and the bark is used by the natives for making ropes and cloth. D. C.
Eaton.
Adapt
(A*dapt") a. Fitted; suited. [Obs.] Swift.
