lapidary

noun

1. (countable, uncountable)A person who cuts and polishes, engraves, or deals in gems and precious stones.

   “An excellent lapidary ſet theſe ſtones ſure, / Doe you mark their vvaters?”

   “[T]he method of eſtimating diamonds is altogether arbitrary; and Ratchkali, vvho vvas an exquiſite lapidary, had ſet it in ſuch a manner as vvould have impoſed upon any ordinary jevveller.”

   “In the very early days of gemstone fashioning, a polisher or lapidary would cut and polish both diamonds and other gemstones. […] Diamonds are now almost exclusively polished by diamond cutting specialists, and all the other gemstones are cut and polished by lapidaries.”

2. (countable, uncountable)The field in which such a person works, a subfield of gemology.
3. (countable, obsolete, uncountable)An expert in gems and precious stones; a connoisseur of lapidary work.

   “Yet as naked as at the firſt bluſh it [the work] ſeemeth, if it ſhall ſtande wyth your Honour his pleaſure (whome I take to be an experte Lapidarie) at vacant houres to inſearche it, you ſhall finde therein ſtones of ſuch eſtimatiõ, as are woorthy to be coucht in riche and precious collets.”

4. (countable, obsolete, uncountable)Gems and precious stones collectively; jewellery.
5. (countable, obsolete, uncountable)A treatise on (precious) stones.

adj

1. (not-comparable)Of or pertaining to gems and precious stones, or the art of working them.
2. (not-comparable)Senses relating to inscriptions.

   “The vvriter of an epitaph ſhould not be conſidered as ſaying nothing but vvhat is ſtrictly true. Allovvance muſt be made for ſome degree of exaggerated praiſe. In lapidary inſcriptions a man is not upon oath.”

   “He's dead—and upper earth with him has done: / He's buried; save the undertaker's bill, / Or lapidary scrawl, the world is gone / For him, […]”

3. (not-comparable)Senses relating to inscriptions.

   “His grand principle is, that lapidary inscriptions, of what sort soever, should be Historical rather than Lyrical.”

   “They were the encouragers of a numismatic and lapidary erudition, elegant in itself, and throwing for ever its little sparks of light on the still ocean of the past, but not very favourable to comprehensive observation, and tending to bestow on an unprofitable pedantry the honours of real learning.”

   “A man of the new age, he [René Descartes] would not accept received ideas; the scientist must make his mind a tabula rasa. The sole truth was that supplied by mathematics or by such lapidary propositions as "What's done cannot be undone," which was irrefutably correct.”

4. (archaic, not-comparable, rare)Of or pertaining to stones in general.

   “Yet such is the temper of this world, that, if a grave philosopher, by shaking his fist, and other acts of bravado, should happen to provoke a company of mischievous boys to reply with a shower of stones, people in general suffer their resentment to settle upon the philosopher for his wanton provocation, rather than on the boys for that lapidary style of retort in which their wrath has been trained to express itself.”

5. (not-comparable, uncommon)Succinct, laconic.