Definify.com
Webster 1913 Edition
Garnet
Gar′net
,Noun.
[OE.
gernet
, grenat
, OF. grenet
,grenat
, F. grenat
, LL. granatus
, fr. L. granatum
pomegranate, granatus
having many grains or seeds, fr. granum
grain, seed. So called from its resemblance in color and shape to the grains or seeds of the pomegranate. See Grain
, and cf. Grenade
, Pomegranate
.] (Min.)
A mineral having many varieties differing in color and in their constituents, but with the same crystallization (isometric), and conforming to the same general chemical formula. The commonest color is red, the luster is vitreous, and the hardness greater than that of quartz. The dodecahedron and trapezohedron are the common forms.
☞ There are also white, green, yellow, brown, and black varieties. The garnet is a silicate, the bases being aluminia lime (grossularite, essonite, or cinnamon stone), or aluminia magnesia (pyrope), or aluminia iron (almandine), or aluminia manganese (spessartite), or iron lime (common garnet, melanite, allochroite), or chromium lime (ouvarovite, color emerald green). The transparent red varieties are used as gems. The garnet was, in part, the carbuncle of the ancients. Garnet is a very common mineral in gneiss and mica slate.
Garnet berry
(Bot.)
, the red currant; – so called from its transparent red color.
– Garnet brown
(Chem.)
, an artificial dyestuff, produced as an explosive brown crystalline substance with a green or golden luster. It consists of the potassium salt of a complex cyanogen derivative of picric acid.
Gar′net
,Noun.
[Etymol. unknown.]
(Naut.)
A tackle for hoisting cargo in or out.
Clew garnet
. See under
Clew
.Webster 1828 Edition
Garnet
G`ARNET
,Noun.
1.
A mineral usually occurring in crystals more or less regular. The crystals have numerous sides, from twelve to sixty or even eighty four. Its prevailing color is red of various shades, but often brown, and sometimes green, yellow or black. It sometimes resembles the hyacinth, the leucite,and the idocrase. Of this gem there are several varieties, as the precious or oriental, the pyrope, the topazolite,the succinite,the common garnet, the melanite, the pyreneite, the grossular, the allochroite,and the colophonite.2.
In ships, a sort of tackle fixed to the main stay, and used to hoist in and out the cargo.