▪ I. toadstone1
(ˈtəʊdstəʊn)
[f. toad n. + stone.]
A name (rendering Gr. and L. batrachītēs, or med.L. bufonītēs, crapodīnus, F. crapaudine (13th c.): cf. Ger. krötenstein), formerly applied to various stones or stone-like objects, likened to a toad in colour or shape, or supposed to be produced by a toad; often credited with alexipharmic or therapeutic virtues, and worn as jewels or amulets, or set in rings. These, though of various origin, were all considered to be forms or species of the same ‘stone’, the most valued kind of which was fabled to be found in the head of the toad, a belief to which many allusions occur in literature: cf, toad n. 1 δ, quot. 1600.
| 1558 Gifts to Q. Eliz. in Nichols Progr. II. 539 A iewell containing a Crapon or Toade stone set in golde. 1605 B. Jonson Volpone ii. v, His saffron iewell, with the toade-stone in 't. 1645 Evelyn Diary 6 May, A ring..which seemed set with a dull, darke stone, a little swelling out, like what we call (tho' untruly) a toadstone. 1668 Wilkins Real Char. 63 As for that..styled a Toadstone; this is properly a tooth of the Fish called Lupus marinus, as hath been made evident to the Royal Society by..Dr. Merit. 1677 Plot Oxfordsh. 128 By my Bufonites or Toad-stone, I intend not that shining polish'd stone,..but a certain reddish liver-colour'd real stone. 1679 Lond. Gaz. No. 1435/4 One gold Ring with a large counterfeited Toad stone. 1696 Phil. Trans. XIX. 199 These convex osseous Tubercules..are of the same kind with our English Bufonites or Toadstones. 1704 Collect. Voy. (Churchill) III. 658/1 The Toad-stone is found in the Head of a certain kind of Toads. 1776 Pennant Brit. Zool. III. 15 It was distinguished by the name of the Reptile, and called the Toad-Stone, Bufonites, Crapaudine, Krottenstein; but all its fancied powers vanished on the discovery of its being nothing but the fossil tooth of the sea-wolf. 1812 Scott Let. to Joanna Baillie 4 Apr. in Lockhart, A toadstone—a celebrated amulet... It was sovereign for protecting new-born children and their mothers from the power of the fairies, and has been repeatedly borrowed from my mother, on account of this virtue. 1870 Murray's Handbk. E. Counties 291 At the feet [of an image of the Virgin] was a toadstone, indicating her victory over all evil and uncleanness. |
| attrib. 1855 tr. Labarte's Arts Mid. Ages xxvi, Toad⁓stone ring. 1877 W. Jones Finger-ring 156 A toadstone ring (the fossil palatal tooth of a species of Ray) was supposed to protect new-born children and their mothers from the power of the fairies. |
▪ II. toadstone2 local.
(ˈtəʊdstəʊn)
[Of uncertain origin; thought by some to be so named from the resemblance of its amygdaloidal spots to those on a toad's skin; by others to be a corruption of a Ger. todtes gestein ‘dead rock’, reduced perh. to *todt-stein. But there appears to be no evidence of this, other than the fact that some Derbyshire mining terms appear to be of German origin.]
A name given by the Derbyshire lead-miners to an igneous rock, occurring as irregular sheets of contemporaneous lava, interstratified with, or in connexion with the metalliferous mountain limestone.
| 1784 Darwin in Phil. Trans. LXXV. 5 The vast beds of toad-stone or lava in many parts of this country. 1796 Kirwan Elem. Min. (ed. 2) I. 229 Toadstone is of a dark brownish grey colour, abounding with cavities filled with crystallized spar. 1823 G. Chalmers Caledonia III. ii. iii. 52 The rock is covered occasionally by toadstone, called in that country coppercraig. 1859 Page Handbk. Geol. Terms 355 Some of these toadstone beds are compact and basaltic, others are earthy, vesicular, and amygdaloidal. 1888 Derbysh. Archæol. Soc. Jrnl. X. 2 The white patches of calcite give to a freshly fractured surface of the rock a peculiar appearance,..considered so like the marks on the body of a toad that the rock is known as Toadstone. |