"adamant"

The word adamant has essentially the same meaning now as it did in Gilbert's day and is used in essentially the same ways. According to the first edition of the OED, "In modern use it is only a poetical or rhetorical name for the embodiment of surpassing hardness; that which is impregnable to any application of force."

This discussion is based on the definition of the word adamant in the first edition of the Oxford English Dictionary, which requires a little explanation.

To Act I or Act II of Gilbert and Sullivan's The Mikado.

To the homepage of this Mikado website.

Suggestions, contributions, criticisms, questions? Email Sharon Cogdill.

(c) Copyright 1998 Sharon Cogdill, dramaturg for this production and author of this website.

College of Fine Arts and Humanities

St. Cloud State University

This URL: http://web.stcloudstate.edu/scogdill/mikado/adamant.html.

Last update: 10 May 1998.