Lapis lazuli is a deep blue stone flecked with gold. A bead of lapis lazuli.
The gold flecks are pyrite, not gold, and the best of it came from one valley in Afghanistan. Ground lapis lazuli was the paint called ultramarine, worth more than gold to a painter.
1nounlapis lazuliA deep blue stone flecked with gold.
“The lapis lazuli in that mask came two thousand miles.”
lapis lazuli is a stone.
Medieval Latin lapis, a stone, plus lazuli, of azure, from the Arabic and Persian name for the stone.
Persian
لاجورد
Arabic
لَازُوَرْد — lapis lazuli, azure
Middle English
lapis lazuli
Medieval Latin
lapis lazulī
English, today
lapis lazuli
Built from
Borrowed from Medieval Latin lapis lazulī. From Middle English lapis lazuli, from Medieval Latin - lapis + lazulī, genitive singular of lazulum (“lapis lazuli, azure, the sky”), from Arabic لَازُوَرْد (“lapis lazuli, azure”), from Persian لاجورد. Compare azure, of the same origin.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA
Practised in Jewellery & Watches