Other forms: sapphires
A sapphire is a hard blue precious stone. A sapphire ring, a star sapphire, deep blue sapphire.
It is the same mineral as a ruby — corundum — and the colour is the only difference, red being ruby and every other shade sapphire, including yellow and pink ones. It is second only to diamond in hardness, which is why watch faces are made of it.
1nounsapphireA hard blue precious stone.
“The necklace was set with a large sapphire the colour of the sea.”
sapphire is a gemstone.
Greek sappheiros names a blue stone, probably from a Semitic source and possibly ultimately from Sanskrit.
Ancient Greek
σάπφειρος — precious stone, gem
Latin
sapphir
Old French
saphir
Middle English
saphir
English, today
sapphire
From Middle English saphir, from Old French saphir, from Latin sapphir, sappir, sapphīrus, from Ancient Greek σάπφειρος (“precious stone, gem”), from a Semitic language such as Hebrew סַפִּיר (“lapis lazuli”), originally from Assyrian akk šipirtu (“lapis lazuli”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA