​ADAMANT (from Gr. άδάμας, untameable), the modern diamond (q.v.), but also a name given to any very hard substance. The Greek word is used by Homer as a personal epithet, and by Hesiod for the hard metal in armour, while Theophrastus applies it to the hardest crystal. By an etymological confusion with the Lat. adamare, to have an attraction for, it also came to be associated with the loadstone; but since the term was displaced by “diamond” it has had only a figurative and poetical use.