garnet
/ˈɡɑːnɪt
/noun
1A precious stone consisting of a deep red vitreous silicate mineral: [as modifier]: a garnet ring...
- Those little red garnets you see in stores are usually pyrope garnets and green garnets are usually grossularite/grossular.
- Think of semi-precious stones such as garnets, topaz, amethyst, aquamarine as much for their range of hues as for the way they hold the light, infusing it with shimmering color.
- Again, it is assumed that readers know aquamarine is beryl, amethyst is quartz, and Iceland spar is calcite but cannot grapple with the complexity of remembering that spessartine and grossular are garnets.
1.1 [mass noun] Mineralogy Any of a class of silicate minerals including this, which belong to the cubic system and have the general chemical formula A3B2(SiO4)3 (A and B being respectively divalent and trivalent metals).Early attempts applying the Sm-Nd isotope system to garnet and clinopyroxene were encouraging and often yielded dates considered as representing near-peak P-T conditions....
- Coexisting MI phases in these rocks include garnet, plagioclase, quartz, tourmaline and fluorite.
- At the B-Q claims, beryl occurs with dark red garnet, smoky quartz, and black tourmaline in miarolitic cavities in a granite pegmatite dykes that cuts across the foliation of a high-grade metamorphic gneiss.
Origin
Middle English: probably via Middle Dutch from Old French grenat, from medieval Latin granatus, perhaps from granatum (see pomegranate), because the garnet is similar in colour to the pulp of the fruit.