sapphirine

[ saf-er-in, -uh-reen, -uh-rahyn ]

adjective

1. consisting of sapphire; like sapphire, especially in color.

noun

1. a pale-blue or greenish, usually granular mineral, a silicate of magnesium and aluminum.
2. a blue variety of spinel.

sapphirine

/ ˈsæfəˌriːn; -rɪn /

noun

1. a rare blue or bluish-green mineral that consists of magnesium aluminium silicate in monoclinic crystalline form and occurs as small grains in some metamorphic rocks
2. a blue variety of spinel

adjective

1. relating to or resembling sapphire

Word History and Origins

Origin of sapphirine¹

1375–1425; late Middle English saphyryn (< Old French ) ≪ Greek sappheírinos like lapis lazuli ( sapphire, -ine ¹ ); sapphirine ( def 2 ) < German Saphirin ≪ Greek, as above

Example Sentences

Now coasts with capes and ribboned beaches Set silent 'neath the canopy sapphirine, And estuaries and river reaches Phantasmal silver in the night's soft shine.

From Project Gutenberg

Outside even in Oxford Street the air was full of summer, and the cool people sauntering under the sapphirine sky were as welcome to his vision as if he had waked from a fever.

From Project Gutenberg

Ghosts—ghosts—the sapphirine air Teems with them even to the gleaming ends Of the wild day-spring! 

From Project Gutenberg

In this case also are the Aluminates of Magnesia, including the sapphirine; the chrysoberyls from Brazil, and those inclosed in quartz and felspar with garnets.

From Project Gutenberg

Her sapphirine eyes searched the Berkshire hills again, "Something bigger and nobler—something which meant the entire sacrifice of self."

From Project Gutenberg