Earth & SkyGreek → English
Sapphire
/ˈsæfaɪər/noun
A hard, usually deep blue gem, a form of corundum.
The Greek roots
σάπφειρος
sáppheiros
blue stone
Literally: “blue stone”
Follow a root:σάπφειρος1 word
The story of the word
The Greek word probably names lapis lazuli rather than our sapphire, and Greek probably took it from a Semitic source; compare Hebrew sappir. Some push it back further, to Sanskrit śanipriya, dear to Saturn. Theophrastus describes the stone as speckled with gold, which fits lapis and its flecks of pyrite and rules out blue corundum entirely.
- How it travelled
- Semitic → Ancient Greek → Latin → Old French → English
- First recorded
- c. 1300
In a sentence
The ring held a single dark sapphire and nothing else.