aventurine, -in
(əˈvɛntjʊərɪn)
Also avant-.
[a. F. aventurine, ad. It. avventurino, f. avventura chance; so called from its accidental discovery.]
1. A brownish-coloured glass interspersed with small gold-coloured spangles, manufactured first at Murano, near Venice. Also called artificial aventurine, aventurine glass, gold flux.
| 1811 Pinkerton Petral. II. 461 With an effect resembling aventurine. 1883 W. Williams in Gentl. Mag. July 94 Aventurine..is a kind of glass of a pale brownish colour, brown pink I should call it. Bedded and suspended in this are innumerable brilliant gold-like spangles. |
2. transf. A variety of quartz, spangled with yellow scales of mica, resembling the preceding in appearance.
| 1858 Tennant Catal. Brit. Foss. 77 Earthy Minerals—Rock Crystal, Amethyst, Cairngorm, Avanturine. 1861 C. King Ant. Gems (1866) 63 The true Aventurine, or Goldie-stone..takes a high polish. 1863 Watts Dict. Chem. I. 476 Aventurin or Avanturin. |
3. The colour or appearance of aventurine.
| 1791 Hamilton Berthollet's Dyeing II. ii. iii. vii, The wax is coloured..for aventurine or gold-colour with orpiment. |
4. attrib. aventurine glass (see 1); aventurine glaze, a glaze for porcelain which produces a similar gold-spangled brown colour; aventurine felspar or sunstone, a mixture of oligoclase and orthoclase spangled with yellowish or reddish crystals; aventurine quartz (see 2).
| 1875 Ure Dict. Arts I. 277 Aventurine glass owes its golden iridescence to a crystalline separation of metallic copper from the mass coloured brown by the peroxide of iron. 1816 Cleaveland Min. 269 Aventurine Feldspar..contains little spangles or points, which reflect a brilliant light. |