GEM • E-FREE TRANSLATION.COM • Definition of Gem

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/dʒɛm/ Listen

noun

Gem n.

1.

(Bot.) A bud. "From the joints of thy prolific stem A swelling knot is raised called a gem."

2.

A precious stone of any kind, as the ruby, emerald, topaz, sapphire, beryl, spinel, etc., especially when cut and polished for ornament; a jewel.

3.

Anything of small size, or expressed within brief limits, which is regarded as a gem on account of its beauty or value, as a small picture, a verse of poetry, a witty or wise saying.

Artificial gem, an imitation of a gem, made of glass colored with metallic oxide. Cf. Paste, and Strass.

verb

Gem v. t. (past & past part. gemmed; pres. part. gemming)

1.

To put forth in the form of buds. "Gemmed their blossoms." (R.)

2.

To adorn with gems or precious stones.

3.

To embellish or adorn, as with gems; as, a foliage gemmed with dewdrops. "England is... gemmed with castles and palaces."

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Etymology of 'Gem'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Gem" Quotes from Famous Books

... Lincoln," by William Cullen Bryant (1794-1878), is one of the finest bird poems ever written. It finds a place here because I have seen it used effectively as a memory gem in the Cook County Normal School (Colonel Parker's school), year after year, and because my own pupils invariably like to commit it to memory. With the child of six to the student of twenty years it stands ...

— Poems Every Child Should Know - The What-Every-Child-Should-Know-Library • Various

... his jewels together in any haphazard way. He often has to wait for months to get the right ruby, or the right pearl, or the right diamond to fit in the right place. Those who do not know might think one gem just like another, but the artist knows. He has been looking at gems, examining them under the microscope. There is a meaning in every facet, in every shade of color. He sees blemishes which the ...

— Great Pianists on Piano Playing • James Francis Cooke

... the signs of power, exciting a kindred joy by sympathy; and in all the signs of conscious life or "soul," exciting a joy which only reaches its height when it is enforced by those more elemental and primitive springs of joy, when he is engaged with souls that glow like a flower or a gem, with souls picturesquely complex and diversified, or vehement, aspiring, heroic. In each of those four domains, light and colour, form, power, soul, Browning had a profound, and in the fullest sense creative, joy, which in endless varieties and combinations dominated ...

— Robert Browning • C. H. Herford

... through mists that may not be dispelled, I see an old farm homestead, as in dreams, Where, like a gem in costly setting held, The old log ...

— Riley Farm-Rhymes • James Whitcomb Riley

... her breast? Or how the fish outbuilt her shell, Painting with morn each annual cell? Or how the sacred pine-tree adds To her old leaves new myriads? Such and so grew these holy piles, Whilst love and terror laid the tiles. Earth proudly wears the Parthenon, As the best gem upon her zone, And Morning opes with haste her lids To gaze upon the Pyramids; O'er England's abbeys bends the sky, As on its friends, with kindred eye; For out of Thought's interior sphere These wonders ...

— Poems - Household Edition • Ralph Waldo Emerson

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