oriental emerald

noun

: a green corundum used as a gem

In a way this is odd, since, unlike rubies and sapphires, today's commercial emeralds are a green-tinted form not of corundum but of beryl, a different mineral entirely. Yet there is a green corundum, too, known commercially as "Oriental emerald," which was not distinguished from green beryl in antiquity.

—'Philologos', The Jewish Daily Forward, 14 May 2004

Word History

First Known Use

1802, in the meaning defined above

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