a compact, opaque, cryptocrystalline variety of quartz, usually colored red: often used in decorative carvings.
Also called jasper ware;. Also called cameo ware. a fine, hard stoneware introduced c1775 by Wedgwood, stained various colors by metallic oxides, with raised designs in white.
a city in NW Alabama.
a resort town in SW Alberta, in SW Canada, on the Athabasca River: headquarters for Jasper National Park.
a male given name, form of Caspar.
an opaque impure microcrystalline form of quartz, red, yellow, brown, or dark green in colour, used as a gemstone and for ornamental decoration
Also called: jasper ware. a dense hard stoneware, invented in 1775 by Wedgwood, capable of being stained throughout its substance with metallic oxides and used as background for applied classical decoration
1300–50; Middle English jaspe, jaspre < Middle French; Old French jaspe < Latin iaspis < Greek iáspis < Semitic; compare Arabic yashb
1895–1900, special use of proper name Jasper
Jasper is a hard, semiprecious stone that's usually red. One of your birthstones is jasper if you were born in the month of March. Jasper is a type of quartz that can be brown, yellow, or green, but is most often a mottled, brick red color. When geologists find jasper embedded in cracks of volcanic rocks, it looks dull and drab, but it's beautifully shiny after being polished. Jasper has been used in jewelry and decorative objects for thousands of years. The word jasper means "spotted or speckled stone," from a Greek root.
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Chakra practitioners believe that a red stone, such as jasper, can help with increasing confidence, overcoming fear and achieving stability.
From Washington Post • Jan. 24, 2023
It is set atop marquetry of turquoise and yellow Mookaite jasper from Australia, both chosen for their inclusions that give the delicate stone-setting the appearance of age.
From New York Times • Jun. 14, 2022
How did that piece of jasper get there?
From Salon • May 6, 2022
Just south of Ocean Shores at the tip of the C-shaped bay, you’ll find Damon Point, a half-mile peninsula famous locally for post-storm agates and red and green jasper.
From Seattle Times • Feb. 9, 2022
Magic orchids, strange trees, and plants of jasper grew on Penglai, a fairy mountain, which may have been Mount Fuji.
From "The Woman Warrior" by Maxine Hong Kingston
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
