Other forms: lapidaries
A lapidary is somebody who cuts and polishes precious stones. Take it to a lapidary.
The skill is knowing where a stone will split before touching it. As an adjective lapidary means terse and elegant, from the style of writing cut into stone.
1nounlapidarySomebody who cuts and polishes precious stones.
“The lapidary studied it for a week before making one cut.”
lapidary is a craftsman.
From Latin lapis, a stone. A medieval lapidary was also a book listing the powers each stone was believed to have, which is why the word covers both the craftsman and the text.
Proto-Indo-European
*lep- — to peel
Latin
lapidārius — (adjective) of stones, stony; (noun) stonecutter
Old French
lapidaire — gemsmith, lapidary
Middle English
lapidari
English, today
lapidary
Built from
The noun is derived from Middle English lapidari, lapidarie (“person who cuts, polishes, or engraves precious stones; expert in precious stones; treatise on precious stones”)lapadari, lapadary, lapidaire, lapidarye, lipidarye, (Scotland) lapidar, from Old French lapidaire (“gemsmith, lapidary”) (modern French lapidaire), or from its etymon Latin lapidārius (“(adjective) of stones, stony; (noun) stonecutter”), from lapidis (the genitive singular of lapis (“stone; (poetic) jewel, precious stone”), possibly from qsb-grc - or Proto-Indo-European lep- (“to peel”)) + -ārius. Noun senses jewellery and treatise are derived from Latin lapidāria or lapidārium, a noun use of the neuter plural or genitive plural respectively of lapidāris (“of stone”), from lapidis (the genitive singular of lapis; see above) + -āris. The stone-referent adjective is either:
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA