sapphirine

American  

[saf-er-in, -uh-reen, -uh-rahyn] / ˈsæf ər ɪn, -əˌrin, -əˌraɪn /

adjective

1. consisting of sapphire; like sapphire, especially in color.

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noun

1. a pale-blue or greenish, usually granular mineral, a silicate of magnesium and aluminum.

2. a blue variety of spinel.

sapphirine British  

/ ˈsæfəˌriːn, -rɪn /

noun

1. a rare blue or bluish-green mineral that consists of magnesium aluminium silicate in monoclinic crystalline form and occurs as small grains in some metamorphic rocks

2. a blue variety of spinel

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adjective

1. relating to or resembling sapphire

Etymology

Origin of sapphirine

1375–1425; late Middle English saphyryn (< Old French ) ≪ Greek sappheírinos like lapis lazuli ( see sapphire, -ine ¹); sapphirine ( def. 2 ) < German Saphirin ≪ Greek, as above

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Example Sentences

See Examples For:

sapphirine

Soft as swan's down, brood o'er the sapphirine Breadth of still shadowy waters dark as wine; Smooth out the liquid heavens that stars illume!

From The Home Book of Verse — Volume 3 by Burton Egbert Stevenson

Ghosts—ghosts—the sapphirine air Teems with them even to the gleaming ends Of the wild day-spring! 

From The Song of the Sword and Other Verses by William Ernest Henley

Now coasts with capes and ribboned beaches Set silent 'neath the canopy sapphirine, And estuaries and river reaches Phantasmal silver in the night's soft shine.

From The Three Hills And other Poems by Charles Baudelaire

In this case also are the Aluminates of Magnesia, including the sapphirine; the chrysoberyls from Brazil, and those inclosed in quartz and felspar with garnets.

From How to See the British Museum in Four Visits by W. Blanchard Jerrold

Like some great opal, far away It shone, with battlement and spire, Wherefrom, with wild aroma, day Blew splintered lights of sapphirine fire.

From Poems by Madison Julius Cawein

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