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Friday July 30, 2004

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lapidary \LAP-uh-dair-ee\ , adjective:
1. Of or pertaining to the art of cutting stones or engraving on them.
2. Engraved in stone.
3. Of or pertaining to the refined or terse style associated with inscriptions on monumental stone.

noun:
1. One who cuts, polishes, and engraves precious stones.
2. A dealer in precious stones.

Here, disgusted by venality and intrigue, the retired courtier would come to compose lapidary maxims and wise but sympathetic letters to ardent youth.
-- Michael Foley, Getting Used to Not Being Remarkable

If I asked how long it took to simmer the meat sauce, Emilia would answer with a grumble and her usual lapidary phrase: "Quanto basta. As long as it takes."
-- Patrizia Chen, Rosemary and Bitter Oranges

The settings for Jim Crace's fiction are always evoked with superb, lapidary precision.
-- Caroline Moore, "The timid Don Juan", Sunday Telegraph, August 31, 2003

Nor is he dismissive of the benefits of modern technology; but a constant theme, like a mounting basso continuo in his story, is the destructive modern emergence of "the cult of the quantitative method known as scientism, physicalism, and reductionism," leading to what C. S. Lewis called in a lapidary phrase "the abolition of man."
-- M. D. Aeschliman, "Faithful Reason", National Review, September 16, 2002

These writers have long and eloquently regretted the latter's lapsed reputation and the unavailability (until now) of his work, pointing to his plain, unobtrusive prose and to his bleak take on life (traits that can be traced, in their view, to Hemingway's lapidary sentences and to his Lost Generation pessimism).
-- Lee Siegel, "The Easter Parade", Harper's Magazine, July 2001

is from Latin lapidarius, "pertaining to stone," from lapis, lapid-, "stone."

Dictionary.com Entry and Pronunciation for lapidary

 

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