stone, noun

Origin:
EnglishShow more Special sense of general English stone precious stone.
A diamond weighing one carat or more; loosely, any diamond; klip noun sense 2. See also cleavage.
1887 A.B. Ellis S. Afr. Sketches 133Well; last night from my tent there was taken A small packet of stones — just a few.
1888 Cape Punch 14 Mar. 155‘Kimberley,’ he said...‘The only canopy above it the blue sky of heaven, in which at night the stars shone like regular genuine “stones”.’
1891 E. Glanville Fossicker 292The cooling mud has closed around the ‘stones,’ taking the impress of every angle and facet.
1897 J.P. Fitzpatrick Outspan 193‘Where’s your claim?’ ‘Going to-morrow!’ The youngest shook his head and smiled faintly...‘Have you found any stones?’
1899 G.C. Griffith Knaves of Diamonds 67They know I’ve got stones from Ridley, but they don’t know what stones — see?
1920 F.C. Cornell Glamour of Prospecting 3The finder of these small stones was again a transport rider, who had been working in German South-West Africa, and had brought back a small phial full of these tiny stones, which he said could be had for the picking any where in the sand near a certain bay he knew of.
1920 F.C. Cornell Glamour of Prospecting 15Now, this seemed a perfectly God-sent opportunity for locating the ‘big stones’ we all felt certain existed, and we set about getting in stores for the trip at once.
a1931 S. Black in S. Gray Three Plays (1984) 167Jacob: The doctor said I’ve got maar a stone inside. Samuel: A stone — how many carats?
1939 M. Rorke Melina Rorke 57We were supposed to sell any diamond so discovered to the De Beers Company, which scrupulously paid the highest market value of each stone, so that it mightn’t fall into the hands of the I.D.B.
1957 D. Jacobson Price of Diamonds 14A crazy fellow, Gottlieb thought, bringing a box of little stones and talking for half an hour.
1967 E.M. Slatter My Leaves Are Green 44When the illicit diamond buyers arrived they began bribing the boys to conceal the diamonds they found while digging, and to bring the stones to them.
1971 Std Encycl. of Sn Afr. IV. 20The first stones were found in a substance near the surface known as ‘yellow ground’...Before long the secret of treatment stood revealed: to allow the blue ground to weather by exposure to the atmosphere before being searched for stones.
1972 S. Afr. Panorama Dec. 27‘Stones’ are usually over one carat (a carat being 200 milligrams). Anything smaller falls in the ‘melee’ category.
A diamond weighing one carat or more; loosely, any diamond; klip noun sense 2.
Entry Navigation

Visualise Quotations

Quotation summary

Senses

18871972

Browse Related Words

By Category

Mining

By Origin

English
stompneus, nounn.stonebuck, nounn.
Copyright © 2025 Dictionary Unit for South African English