Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
"DIAMONDS" is a plural of: diamond. |
Date "DIAMONDS" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1010. (references) |
| Domain | Definition |
Aerospace | The pattern of shock waves often visible in a rocket exhaust which resembles a series of diamond shapes placed end to end. (references) |
Dream Interpretation | To dream of owning diamonds is a very propitious dream, signifying great honor and recognition from high places. For a young woman to dream of her lover presenting her with diamonds, foreshows that she will make a great and honorable marriage, which will fill her people with honest pride; but to lose diamonds, and not find them again, is the most unlucky of dreams, foretelling disgrace, want and death. For a sporting woman to dream of diamonds, foretells for her many prosperous days and magnificent presents. For a speculator, it denotes prosperous transactions. To dream of owning diamonds, portends the same for sporting men or women. Diamonds are omens of good luck, unless stolen from the bodies of dead persons, when they foretell that your own unfaithfulness will be discovered by your friends. Source: Ten Thousand Dreams Interpreted .... |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)
Diamond is one of the natural allotropes of carbon (the main one being graphite). Sometimes known as adamant, it is the hardest known naturally occurring material, scoring 10 on the old Mohs hardness scale. The material boron nitride, when in a form structurally identical to diamond, is nearly as hard as diamond; a currently hypothetical material, beta carbon nitride, may also be as hard or harder in one form. The diamond derives its name from the Greek adamas, "untameable" or "unconquerable", referring to its hardness.
Diamond is a transparent, optically isotropic crystal with a refractive index of 2.417, a high dispersion of 0.044, and a specific gravity of 3.52. Diamonds crystallize in the cubic crystal system and consist of tetrahedrally bonded carbon atoms. Diamonds have a perfect octahedral cleavage, which means that they have four cleavage planes. Diamonds occur most often as euhedral or rounded octahedra and twinned octahedra known as macles. Other forms include dodecahedra and cubes. Diamonds are commonly found coated in nyf, a gum-like skin. Their fracture may be step-like, conchoidal (shell-like, similar to glass) or irregular. The lustre of a diamond is described as adamantine, which simply means diamond-like.
Diamonds exhibit fluorescence of various colors under long wave ultra-violet light, but generally bluish-white, yellowish or greenish fluorescence under X-rays. Diamonds have an absorption spectrum consisting of a fine line in the violet at 415.5 nm. Colored stones show additional bands. Brown diamonds show a band in the green at 504 nm, sometimes accompanied by two additional weak bands also in the green.
Except for most natural blue diamonds which are semiconductors, diamond is a good electrical insulator, but unlike most insulators, is a good conductor of heat because of the strong bonding within the molecule. Specially purified artificial diamonds have the highest thermal conductivity (20-25 W/cmK, five times more than copper) of any known solid at room temperature. Most natural blue diamonds contain boron atoms which replace carbon atoms in the crystal matrix, and also have high thermal conductance. Natural blue diamonds recently recovered from the Argyle mine in Australia have been found to owe their color to an overabundance of hydrogen atoms: these diamonds are not semiconductors.
Because diamonds have such high thermal conductance they are already used in semiconductor manufacture to prevent silicon and other semiconducting materials from overheating. Natural blue diamonds containing boron and synthetic diamonds doped with boron are p-type semiconductors. If an n-type semiconductor can be synthesized, electronic circuits could be manufactured of diamond. Worldwide research is in progress, with occasional successes reported, but nothing definite. In 2002 it was reported in the journal Nature that researchers have succeeded in depositing a thin diamond film on a diamond surface which is a major step towards manufacture of a diamond chip. In 2003 it was reported that NTT developed a diamond semiconductor device.
Type I diamonds have nitrogen atoms as the main impurity. If they are in clusters they do not affect the diamond's color (Type Ia). If dispersed though out the crystal they give the stone a yellow tint (Type Ib), the Cape series. Typically a natural diamond crystal contains both Type Ia and Type Ib material. Synthetic diamonds which contain nitrogen are Type Ib
Type II diamonds have no nitrogen impurities. Rarely, they contain no other impurities: these are Type IIa, colored pink, red or brown by structural anomalies arising through plastic deformation. Type IIb are the natural blue diamonds which contain scattered boron within the crystal matrix.
Diamonds occur in a variety of colors - steel, white, blue, yellow, orange, red, green, pink, brown and black. Colored diamonds contain impurities or molecular defects that cause the coloration, whilst pure diamonds are always transparent and colorless.
In the late 18th century, diamonds were demonstrated to be made of carbon by the rather expensive experiment of igniting a diamond (by means of a burning-glass) in an oxygen atmosphere and showing that carbonic acid gas (carbon dioxide) was the product of the combustion. The fact that diamonds are combustible bears further examination because it is related to an interesting fact about diamonds. Diamonds are carbon crystals that form deep within the Earth under high temperatures and extreme pressures. At surface air pressure (one atmosphere), diamonds are not as stable as graphite, and so the decay of diamond is thermodynamically favorable (ΔH = -2KJmol-1). So, despite De Beers' ad campaign, diamonds are definitely not forever. However, owing to a very large kinetic energy barrier, diamonds will not decay into graphite under normal conditions.
The Diamond Industry
Due to their high dispersion (fire), diamonds have been prized as a constituent of jewellery, and a large trade in gemstone-class diamonds exists, mostly controlled by the De Beers company, which has used its monopoly to control prices.
Marcel Tolkowsky's 1919 book on Diamond Design describes the history of diamond cutting since the late Middle Ages. Roughly 1900, the development of diamond saws and good jewelry lathes enabled the modern Round Brilliant cut. Tolkowsky determined a detailed design for this cut. His geometric calculations are in his book.
In the 1970s, Bruce Harding developed another mathematical model for gem design. Since then, several groups have used computer models (e.g., MSU, OctoNus, GIA, and folds.net) and specialized scopes to design diamond cuts.
During the 1990s Israeli interests acquired about 20% of the diamond trade, buying diamonds from Russia and from mines in Africa not controlled by De Beers. De Beers now deals only in diamonds from their own mines. A major diamond cutting industry has grown up in Gujarat State, India where 90% of the world's diamonds are cut by a workforce of 800,000. Diamonds are valued according to the four C's of diamond grading, namely color, clarity, cut, and carat. Deep blue diamonds such as the Hope Diamond are particularly valuable as are blue-white diamonds generally.
80% of the diamonds produced are poorer quality (discolored, less transparent) diamonds which are used as industrial diamonds, where their extreme hardness is useful in cutting and grinding otherwise intractable materials (including other diamonds). Lately, gas-phase deposition processes have been devised that allow thin diamond films to be grown on some surfaces, greatly increasing the durability of some machine tools.
Diamonds typically have cubic symmetry. A second form called lonsdaleite with hexagonal symmetry is also found. The local environment of each atom is identical in the two structures.
Historically diamonds were found in alluvial deposits in southern India which are now worked out. Most diamond deposits are in Africa, notably in South Africa, Namibia, Botswana, the Republic of the Congo and Sierra Leone. Revolutionary groups in some of those countries have taken control of diamond mines, using the conflict diamonds to finance their continuing operations with baleful results.
There are also commercial deposits in the Northwest Territories, Canada in the Russian Arctic, Brazil and in Northern and Western Australia. Occasionally diamonds have been found in glacial deposits in Wisconsin and Indiana. The Wisconsin finds can be explained by recent Canadian discoveries, but the diamonds found in Indiana must have come from an as yet undiscovered source in Quebec as the movement of ice was from northeast to southwest. Tiny nanometer sized diamonds, often called nanodiamonds, are also found as presolar grains in primitive meteorites.
Diamonds were first produced artificially on February 16, 1953 in Stockholm, Sweden by the QUINTUS project of ASEA, Sweden's major electrical manufacturing company using a bulky apparatus designed by Baltzar von Platen. Pressure was maintained within the device at an estimated 83,000 atmospheres for an hour. A few small crystals were produced. The discovery was kept secret.
While large diamonds has up to now been more expensive to produce artificially than to mine, smaller artificial diamonds and especially diamond dust has become an important industry with General Electric at the forefront. As of 2003, at least two companies are planning to introduce high-quality artificial diamonds, virtually indistinguible from the natural occurring ones, in an year or two. The traditional diamond industry is evaluating countermeasures (source: [1]).
A city of major importance in diamond trade is Antwerp.
Symbolism of Diamonds
Diamonds are the traditional emblem of fearlessness and are used to symbolize eternity and love, being often seen adorning wedding bands.
The LifeGem company further taps this symbolism by offering to synthetically convert the carbonized remains of people or pets into "memorial diamonds."
Famous Stones
- Cullinan Diamond
- Hope Diamond
- Koh-i-noor
- Millennium star
External Links
- On conflict diamonds (UN)
- Article in Nature on the diamond chip
- Article in Nature on advancing techniques of growing diamond crystals
- OctoNus Software has posted several diamond cut studies, by various authors. OctoNus, Moscow State University, Bruce Harding, and others have posted work there.
- Gemological Institute of America
Further Reading
See also: List of minerals, Diamonds (card suit)
- Diamond Design, Marcel Tolkowsky. Web edition as edited by Jasper Paulsen. www.folds.net, Seattle, 2001.
- The New Alchemists: Breaking Through the Barriers of High Pressure, Robert M. Hazen, Times Books, Random House, New York, 1992, hardcover, 286 pages, ISBN 0-8129-2275-1
Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Diamond."
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)
Diamonds is one of the four suitss found in playing cards.It is the third-highest ranking suit in Contract bridge.
See also diamond, the mineral gemstone.
Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Diamonds."
| Context | Synonyms within Context (source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus). |
Amusement | Spades, hearts, clubs, diamonds; major suit, minor suit. |
| Source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus. | |
Crosswords: DIAMONDS |
| English words defined with "DIAMONDS": Bort, Bulse ♦ Diamantiferous, diamantine, diamond, Diamond drill, Diamonded, Diamondize ♦ Great cassino ♦ ice ♦ kimberlite ♦ minor suit ♦ playfully, Playing card ♦ Rose-cut ♦ scone, sparkler ♦ The curse of Scotland. (references) |
| Specialty definitions using "DIAMONDS": added diamonds ♦ Bristol Diamonds ♦ diamonds per carat ♦ sand diamonds ♦ track diamonds. (references) |
| Etymologies containing "DIAMONDS": Diamondize. (references) |
| Domain | Usage | |
Screenplays | by the way, do you prefer diamonds or saphires (Sliding Doors; writing credit: Peter Howitt.) Julie baby, I'm ga-ga about you. No kiddin', honey, your teeth are like pearls, your eyes are like diamonds and your lips -- like rubies (The Hollywood Revue of 1929; writing credit: Al Boasberg; Robert E. Hopkins) I hear uncut diamonds are as good as cash on the open market (Daria; writing credit: Glenn Eichler; Peggy Nicoll) Maybe you could, like, buy a horse and some diamonds. (Pretty Woman; writing credit: J.F. Lawton) So, who wants to see the diamonds now (Piranha, Piranha!; writing credit: John Tsiotis) | |
Lyrics | Diamonds shinin' (California Love; performing artist: 2 PAC) I don't need no diamonds (Living In Sin; performing artist: Bon Jovi) Her eyes shine like diamonds in a field of snow (Pass You By; performing artist: Boyz II Men) We drink wine with diamonds in the glass (Lady Marmalade; performing artist: Christina Aguilera) You priceless, you like diamonds and icey wrists (Feelin' So Good; performing artist: Jennifer Lopez) | |
Movie/TV Titles | Diamonds on Wheels (1973) Jack of Diamonds (1967) Dateline Diamonds (1965) King of Diamonds (1961) Canadian Diamonds (1960) | |
Song Titles | Diamonds (performing artist: Herb Alpert) Diamonds & Pearls (performing artist: Prince & The N.P.G.) | |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | ||
| Domain | Title | ||
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Periodicals |
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Theater & Movies | |||
Music |
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Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |||
| Thumbnail | Description & Credit | Thumbnail | Description & Credit |
 | Lace and diamonds. Credit: Library of Congress. |  | Portrait of Carol Channing, "Diamonds are a girl's best friend". Credit: Library of Congress. |
Source: pictures compiled by the editor from various references; see picture credits. | |||
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| "Diamonds in the Sea" by Luke Wertz Commentary: "On a boat trip up the lake in the very early morning. I didn't think that the camera would be able to catch the way the sun was refelcting -- I was wrong! I meant to cut out the shoreline, but it gives the pictures some perspective anyway :)." |
Source: photographs selected by the editor, with permission from the photographers. |
| Author | Quotation |
(Decimus Junius Juvenalis) Juvenal | Many individuals have, like uncut diamonds, shining qualities beneath a rough exterior. |
Douglas William Jerrold | Treason is like diamonds; there is nothing to be made by the small trader. |
Robert Green Ingersoll | Colleges are places where pebbles are polished and diamonds are dimmed. |
Samuel Johnson | Praise, like gold and diamonds, owes its value only to its scarcity. |
Sir Thomas Browne | Rough diamonds may sometimes be mistaken for worthless pebbles. |
Tillotson | The short sayings of wise and good men are of great value, like the dust of gold, or the sparks of diamonds. |
Zsa Zsa Gabor | I never hate a man enough to give him his diamonds back. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | |
| Author | Date | Quotation |
John Locke | 1690 | The greatest part of things really useful to the life of man, and such as the necessity of subsisting made the first commoners of the world look after, as it cloth the Americans now, are generally things of short duration; such as, if they are not consumed by use, will decay and perish of themselves: gold, silver and diamonds, are things that fancy or agreement hath put the value on, more than real use, and the necessary support of life. (Second Treatise of Government) |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | ||
| Subject | Topic | Quote |
Economic History | Sierra Leone | Sierra Leone is a major producer of gem-quality diamonds. (references) |
Namibia | Mining (20% of GDP in 1993): Gem-quality diamonds, other. (references) | |
Guinea | Diamonds and gold also are also mined and exported on a largescale. (references) | |
Human Rights | Sierra Leone | RUF members tied up and beat the woman's stepson, who was accused of stealing diamonds. (references) |
Sierra Leone | On April 4, there were unconfirmed reports that RUF members in Seidu in the Kono District tied up and beat a woman accused of hoarding diamonds; the woman died from her injuries. (references) | |
Political Economy | Guyana | Guyana is rich in gold, diamonds, timber, and bauxite. (references) |
Trade | South Africa | Diamonds for export must be registered with the SA Diamond Board. (references) |
Turkey | Precious metals and stones, excluding diamonds, can only be imported by commercial banks authorized by the Central Bank (Decree No. 93/4143, March 21, 1993). (references) | |
Botswana | Export controls are however assessed on the following restricted items, which require export permits: radioactive materials, unpolished diamonds, gold, wildlife and wildlife trophies, plants, hides and skins, and agricultural products. (references) | |
Travel | Netherlands | Roads posted with orange diamonds do not have to yield the right-of-way. (references) |
Cote D'ivoire | The most popular frauds involve money from a deposed political leader, smuggled diamonds, an unclaimed debt, gold bars, or imported goods with an absurd mark-up. (references) | |
Worker Rights | Ghana | On April 2, approximately 600 workers from Ghana Consolidated Diamonds Limited (GCD) staged a peaceful demonstration at the company's premises in Akwatia, Eastern Region, to protest plans for the company's divestiture. (references) |
Source: compiled by the editor from ICON Group International, Inc.; see credits. | ||
| "DIAMONDS" is generally used as a noun (plural) -- approximately 98.41% of the time. "DIAMONDS" is used about 566 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted) |
| Parts of Speech | Percent | Usage per 100 Million Words | Rank in English |
| Noun (plural) | 98.41% | 557 | 11,224 |
| Noun (proper) | 1.59% | 9 | 117,287 |
| Total | 100.00% | 566 | N/A |
Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.
| Country | Name | Country | Name |
| India | Classic Diamonds (India) Limited | Sri Lanka | Blue Diamonds Jewellery Worldwide |
| United Kingdom | Firestone Diamonds Public Limited Company | ||
| (more examples...) |
Source: compiled by the editor from Icon Group International, Inc.
Expressions using "DIAMONDS": ace of diamonds ♦ clubs and diamonds. Additional references. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. |
| The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com. |
| Expression | Frequency per Day |
darmstadt diamonds.com | 3 |
diamonds.com kingsgate | 2 |
diamonds.com paved | 2 |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Language | Translations for "DIAMONDS"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | |
Albanian | karo. (various references) | |
Bulgarian | въглища. (various references) | |
Czech | kule, káry. (various references) | |
Finnish | ruutu (check, pane, square). (various references) | |
German | Diamanten (sparklers). (various references) | |
Hungarian | káró. (various references) | |
Italian | diamanti (sparklers), denaro (coin, means, money, oof, pelf, penny), quadri (cadre). (various references) | |
Manx | daimanyn. (various references) | |
Pig Latin | iamondsday.(various references) | |
Romanian | caro (diamond). (various references) | |
Russian | бубны. (various references) | |
Serbo-Croatian | karo. (various references) | |
Swedish | ruter (ginger, go). (various references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various translation references. | ||
Misspellings | |
"DIAMONDS" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: daimond, daimones, daimons, deiamond, desmonds, diamands, diamondes, diamondy, diamont, dimond, di'mond, diomond, Gismondis. (additional references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |
| # of Phoneme Matches | Pronunciation | Word(s) rhyming with "DIAMONDS" (pronounced dī"mundz) |
| 5 | -m u n d z | almonds. |
| 4 | -u n d z | Docklands, errands, Highlands, Hollands, husbands, islands, legends, ligands, milliseconds, nanoseconds, seconds, stipends, thousands, uplands. |
| 3 | -n d z | abounds, amends, ands, armbands, ascends, astounds, attends, contends, corresponds, backgrounds, Badlands, bands, battlegrounds, befriends, behinds, bends, binds, blends, blinds, blondes, blonds, bloodhounds, bonds, bookends, bounds, boyfriends, brands, bunds, campgrounds, commands, commends, compounds, confounds, defends, demands, depends, descends, dividends, ends, expands, expounds, extends, fairgrounds, farmhands, farmlands, fends, fiends, finds, Firebrands, flatlands, forehands, friends, fronds, funds, girlfriends, glands, grands, grasslands, grinds, grounds, hands, handstands, headbands, hinds, hinterlands, homelands, hounds, intends, kinds, lands, lends, lowlands, marshlands, masterminds, Meadowlands, Midlands, minds, misunderstands, moorlands, mounds, newsstands, offends, overspends, playgrounds, ponds, portends, pounds, pretends, quicksands, rands, rebounds, recommends, refunds, reminds, reprimands, responds, rinds, rounds, sands, sends, sounds, spacebands, spends, stagehands, stands, strands, surrounds, suspends, tends, Timberlands, transcends, trends, turnarounds, understands, vagabonds, wands, weekends, wends, wetlands, winds, withstands, woodlands, woodwinds, wounds. |
Source: compiled by the editor (additional references); see credits. | ||
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
| Words within the letters "a-d-d-i-m-n-o-s" | |
-1 letter: daimons, diamond, domains. | |
-2 letters: adonis, amnios, daimon, damson, danios, domain, misadd, monads, nomads. | |
-3 letters: adios, amido, amids, amino, amins, amnio, dados, damns, danio, didos, donas, maids, mains, manos, mason, minas, minds, misdo, moans, monad, monas, nomad, nomas. | |
-4 letters: adds, ados, aids, aims, ains, amid, amin, amis, ands, anis, dado, dads, dais, damn, dams, dido. | |
| Words containing the letters "a-d-d-i-m-n-o-s" | |
+1 letter: bondmaids. | |
+2 letters: admonished, demantoids. | |
+3 letters: gormandised, landlordism, maidenhoods. | |
+4 letters: diamondbacks, landlordisms, misdiagnosed. | |
+5 letters: demimondaines, demodulations, disharmonized, hydrodynamics. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
| 1. Definition 2. Crosswords 3. Usage: Modern 4. Usage: Commercial | 5. Images: Slideshow 6. Images: Photo Album 7. Images: Digital Art 8. Quotations: Familiar | 9. Quotations: Historic 10. Quotations: Non-fiction 11. Usage Frequency 12. Names: Company Usage | 13. Expressions 14. Expressions: Internet 15. Translations: Modern 16. Derivations | 17. Rhymes 18. Anagrams 19. Bibliography |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
