adamant

Meanings

1. 1
   adj

   refusing to be persuaded; utterly unyielding

   She was adamant that the meeting could not be postponed.

Simplified etymology

Adamant comes through Latin from Greek adamas, originally meaning “invincible” or “untameable” and later applied to the hardest metal or stone, including diamond. In Old English, adamant denoted a legendary impenetrable rock. Medieval writers mistakenly connected it with Latin adamare, “take a liking to,” which encouraged an association with the magnet that attracts iron; the modern figurative sense of being unyielding in conviction probably dates from the 1810s.

From Latin adamas (genitive adamantis, 'hardest metal, diamond'), from Ancient Greek adamas (ἀδάμας, 'unconquerable, hardest substance'), from a- ('not') + damaō ('to tame, subdue').

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