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''lapis lazuli'' ▫ᴱᴺ｜Definition｜1st｜20260130210911-00-⌔

lapis lazuli - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

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Noun

lapis lazuli (countable and uncountable, plural lapides lazuli or lapis lazulis)

  • (mineralogy) A deep blue stone, used in making jewelry, and traditionally used to make the pigment ultramarine.
    • ✤ Synonyms: lapis, lazuli, lazurite
    • ✤ He saw the amber silk curtains wave to and fro: the middle window was open; in it stood a pillar of lapis lazuli, which supported an alabaster figure, Canova’s Dansatrice.1
  • A deep, bright blue, like that of the stone.
    • ✤ lapis lazuli:

Adjective

lapis lazuli

  • Of a deep, bright blue, like that of the stone.
    • ✤ I cannot convey to you the sheer and surreal scale of everything: the towering ship, the ropes, the ties, the anchor, the pier, the vast lapis lazuli dome of the sky.2

Etymology

From Middle English lapis lazuli, from Medieval Latin lapis (“stone”) +‎ lazulī, genitive singular of lazulum (“lapis lazuli, azure, the sky”), from Arabic لَازُوَرْد (lāzuward, “lapis lazuli, azure”), from Persian لاجورد (lâjvard). Compare azure, of the same origin.

Pronunciation

  • (Received Pronunciation) IPA: /ˌlap.ɪs ˈlaz.jʊ.laɪ/, /ˈlaz.jʊ.li/
  • (General American) enPR: lăp’ĭs lăzʹ(y)ə-lē, lăzʹ(y)ə-lī, lăzhʹə-lē, lăzhʹə-lī, IPA: /ˌlæp.ɪs ˈlæz.(j)ə.li/, /ˈlæz.(j)ə.laɪ/, /ˈlæʒ.ə.li/, /ˈlæʒ.ə.laɪ/, /ləˈzu.li/
  • Audio (US): 🔊
  • Hyphenation: la‧pis la‧zu‧li

Printed 2026-06-28.

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Footnotes

  1. 1832, Letitia Elizabeth Landon, Heath’s Book of Beauty, 1833, The Talisman, page 66: ↩

  2. 1997, David Foster Wallace, “A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again”, in A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again, Kindle edition, Little, Brown Book Group: ↩

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