lapidary

plural lapidaries

1. countableuncountableA person who cuts and polishes, engraves, or deals in gems and precious stones.

   An excellent lapidary ſet theſe ſtones ſure, / Doe you mark their vvaters?

   1624 (first performance), John Fletcher, Rule a Wife and Have a Wife. A Comoedy. […], Oxford, Oxfordshire: […] Leonard Lichfield […], published 1640, →OCLC, Act V, scene i, page 56

   2 more examples

   [T]he method of eſtimating diamonds is altogether arbitrary; and Ratchkali, vvho vvas an exquiſite lapidary, had ſet it in ſuch a manner as vvould have impoſed upon any ordinary jevveller.

   1753, [Tobias Smollett], “He Appears in the Great World with Universal Applause and Admiration”, in The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom. […], volume I, London: […] W. Johnston, […], →OCLC, page 234

   In the very early days of gemstone fashioning, a polisher or lapidary would cut and polish both diamonds and other gemstones. […] Diamonds are now almost exclusively polished by diamond cutting specialists, and all the other gemstones are cut and polished by lapidaries.

   2005, P[eter] G. Read, “The Fashioning of Gemstones”, in Gemmology, 3rd edition, Oxford, Oxfordshire; Burlington, Mass.: Elsevier Butterworth-Heinemann, →ISBN, page 252

   Synonyms: gemsmith, lapidarist, lapidist

2. countableuncountableThe field in which such a person works, a subfield of gemology.
3. countableobsoleteuncountableAn expert in gems and precious stones; a connoisseur of lapidary work.

   Yet as naked as at the firſt bluſh it [the work] ſeemeth, if it ſhall ſtande wyth your Honour his pleaſure (whome I take to be an experte Lapidarie) at vacant houres to inſearche it, you ſhall finde therein ſtones of ſuch eſtimatiõ, as are woorthy to be coucht in riche and precious collets.

   1577, Raphaell Holinshed; Richarde Stanyhurst [i.e., Richard Stanihurst], “The Historie of Irelande […]”, in The Firste Volume of the Chronicles of England, Scotlande, and Irelande […], volume I, London: […] [Henry Bynneman] for Iohn Hunne, →OCLC, folio 1, verso, column 1

   Synonyms: gemmologist, gemologist, lapidist

4. countableobsoleteuncountableGems and precious stones collectively; jewellery.
5. countableobsoleteuncountableexcept historicalA treatise on (precious) stones.

1. not comparableOf or pertaining to gems and precious stones, or the art of cutting or otherwise working them.
2. not comparableOf or pertaining to monumental stones, and particularly to the art of inscribing them.
3. not comparableengraved on stone.

   He's dead—and upper earth with him has done: / He's buried; save the undertaker's bill, / Or lapidary scrawl, the world is gone / For him, […]

   1822 October 15, Quevedo Redivivus [pseudonym; Lord Byron], “The Vision of Judgment”, in The Liberal. Verse and Prose from the South, 2nd edition, volume I, number I, London: […] John Hunt, […], published 1823, →OCLC, stanza XII, page 7

   1 more example

   The vvriter of an epitaph ſhould not be conſidered as ſaying nothing but vvhat is ſtrictly true. Allovvance muſt be made for ſome degree of exaggerated praiſe. In lapidary inſcriptions a man is not upon oath.

   1791, James Boswell, quoting Samuel Johnson, “[1775]”, in James Boswell, editor, The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. […], volume I, London: […] Henry Baldwin, for Charles Dilly, […], →OCLC, page 514

4. Senses relating to speech or writing.
   1. not comparablePertaining to a way of speaking which is circumlocutional, is excessively precise, and is multifaceted in the construction of propositions.

      My chances, slender at best, rested with (the barrister Emmet Bourke), and I was sorry to find myself developing a thin, sharp dislike for the man. He had too great a fondness for lapidary formulation.

      1988, Thomas Flanagan, novel: The Tenants of Time chapter 11

   2. not comparableOf a piece of writing or a writing style: characteristic of or suitable for an inscription; embodying the precision and refinement of inscriptions on monuments; concise and stately.

      His grand principle is, that lapidary inscriptions, of what sort soever, should be Historical rather than Lyrical.

      1831, Thomas Carlyle, “Getting Under Way”, in Sartor Resartus: The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdröckh. […], London: Chapman and Hall, […], →OCLC, 2nd book, page 91

      2 more examples

      They were the encouragers of a numismatic and lapidary erudition, elegant in itself, and throwing for ever its little sparks of light on the still ocean of the past, but not very favourable to comprehensive observation, and tending to bestow on an unprofitable pedantry the honours of real learning.

      1837–1839, Henry Hallam, “History of Physical and Miscellaneous Literature from 1500 to 1600”, in Introduction to the Literature of Europe, in the Fifteenth, Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, volume II, London: John Murray, […], →OCLC, section VII (General State of Literature), paragraph 64, page 503

      A man of the new age, he [René Descartes] would not accept received ideas; the scientist must make his mind a tabula rasa. The sole truth was that supplied by mathematics or by such lapidary propositions as "What's done cannot be undone," which was irrefutably correct.

      2000, Karen Armstrong, “Christians: Brave New World (1492–1870)”, in The Battle for God (A Ballantine Book), New York, N.Y.: The Random House Publishing Group, published February 2001, →ISBN, part 1 (The Old World and the New), page 71

      Synonyms: brief, concise, crisp, laconic, short-winded, succinct, tight, to the point · Antonyms: circumlocutory, diffuse, periphrastic, palaverous, pleonastic, prolix, rigmarole, sesquipedalian

5. archaicnot comparablerareOf or pertaining to stones in general.

   1 more example

   Yet such is the temper of this world, that, if a grave philosopher, by shaking his fist, and other acts of bravado, should happen to provoke a company of mischievous boys to reply with a shower of stones, people in general suffer their resentment to settle upon the philosopher for his wanton provocation, rather than on the boys for that lapidary style of retort in which their wrath has been trained to express itself.

   1831 June, Thomas De Quincey, “Whiggism in Its Relations to Literature”, in Sketches: Critical and Biographic (De Quincey’s Works; VI), London: James Hogg & Sons, →OCLC, page 164

6. not comparableuncommonSuccinct, laconic.