PEARL

Pearl

A pearl is a hard object produced within the soft tissue of a living shelled mollusc. Just like the shell of a clam, a pearl is made up of calcium carbonate in minute crystalline form, which has been deposited in concentric layers. The ideal pearl is perfectly round and smooth, but many other shapes of pearls occur. The finest quality natural pearls have been highly valued as gemstones and objects of beauty for many centuries, and because of this, the word pearl has become a metaphor for something very rare, fine, admirable, and valuable.

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pearl

Noun

  1. A shelly concretion, usually rounded, and having a brilliant luster, with varying tints, found in the mantle, or between the mantle and shell, of certain bivalve mollusks, especially in the pearl oysters and river mussels, and sometimes in certain univalves. It is usually due to a secretion of shelly substance around some irritating foreign particle. Its substance is the same as nacre, or mother-of-pearl. Pearls which are round, or nearly round, and of fine luster, are highly esteemed as jewels, and compare in value with the precious stones.
  2. Something precious.
  3. A capsule of gelatin or similar substance containing liquid for e.g. medicinal application.
  4. Nacre, or mother-of-pearl.
  5. A whitish speck or film on the eye.
  6. A fish allied to the turbot; the brill.
  7. A light-colored tern.
  8. One of the circle of tubercles which form the bur on a deer's antler.
  9. Five-point size of type, between agate and diamond.
  10. A fringe or border.

Verb

  1. To set or adorn with pearls, or with mother-of-pearl. Used also figuratively.
  2. To cause to resemble pearls; to make into small round grains; as, to pearl barley.
  3. To resemble pearl or pearls.
  4. To give or hunt for pearls; as, to go pearling.
  5. to dig the nose of one's surfboard into the water, often on takeoff.


The above text is a snippet from Wiktionary: pearl
and as such is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

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