ADAMANT, the modern diamond (q.v.), but also a name given to any very hard substance (Gr. &Sagas, untameable). The word is used by Homer as a personal epithet, and by Hesiod for the hard metal in armour. By confusion with the Lat. adamare, to have an attraction for, it came to be associated with the load stone ; but since the term was displaced by "diamond" it has had only a figurative and poetical use.