Dictionaries › English

jewel

Pronunciation: /ˈd͡ʒuːəl/

The English word “jewel” has 8 meanings listed here.

noun

  1. A precious or semi-precious stone; gem, gemstone.
  2. A valuable object used for personal ornamentation, especially one made of precious metals and stones; a piece of jewellery.
  3. Anything precious or valuable.
  4. A bearing for a pivot in a watch, formed of a crystal or precious stone.
  5. Any of various lycaenid butterflies of the genus Hypochrysops.
  6. The clitoris.
  7. A jewel box (optical disc container).

verb

  1. To bejewel; to decorate or bedeck with jewels or gems.

Etymology

From Middle English juel, jewel, juwel, jeuel, jowel, from Anglo-Norman juel, from Old French jouel, joel, joïel, hence French joyau, of uncertain origin. Perhaps based ultimately on Latin gaudium (“joy”), or on Latin iocus (“joke; jest”), or according to Pihan, from Arabic جَوْهَر (jawhar). Compare Medieval Latin jocale. Displaced native Old English māþm.

Keep exploring: in the interactive dictionary every word of a definition is a link. Open “jewel” there

More English words

About this dictionary

The English dictionary on Glottosphere has 650,529 entries with a page. Browse the English dictionary.

Definitions are from Wiktionary, extracted by Kaikki.org, and are available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.