onyx

From Middle English onix (c. 1300), earlier oniche (c. 1250), from Old French oniche or onix, from Latin onyx, from Ancient Greek ὄνυξ (ónux, “onyx”).[1] Doublet of unguis.

• IPA^(key): /ˈɒnɪks/

• Audio (Southern England)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɒnɪks

onyx (countable and uncountable, plural onyxes)

1. (mineralogy) A banded variety of chalcedony, a cryptocrystalline form of quartz.
   • 2023 September 23, Tom Robbins, “Suite dreams”, in FT Weekend, Life & Arts, page 1:

     People talk about using marble in the bathrooms. Marble wasn't good enough for use—we have onyx!

2. A jet-black color, named after the gemstone.

   onyx:  

3. Any of various lycaenid butterflies of the genus Horaga.

• onyx marble

Black banded onyx

onyx (not comparable)

1. jet-black
   • 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC:
     , Genesis, 2:12

     And the gold of that land is good: there is bdellium and the onyx stone.

   • 1922, Michael Arlen, “3/7/2”, in “Piracy”: A Romantic Chronicle of These Days‎:

     There was no moon, only stars set brilliantly in the soft black onyx of the sky : a black night and very silent on Cimiez ; and a black and silent prospect from the verandah […]

• sardonyx

From Ancient Greek ὄνυξ (ónux, “nail”).

• (Classical) IPA^(key): /ˈo.nyks/, [ˈɔnʏks̠]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /ˈo.niks/, [ˈɔːniks]

onyx m (genitive onychis); third declension

1. onyx, yellow marble
2. A yellowish precious stone
3. The female of a mussel of the scallop species

Third-declension noun.

• “onyx”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “onyx”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• “onyx”, in Harry Thurston Peck, editor (1898), Harper's Dictionary of Classical Antiquities, New York: Harper & Brothers
• “onyx”, in William Smith et al., editor (1890), A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, London: William Wayte. G. E. Marindin

onyx (uncountable)

1. Alternative form of oniche

onyx m (invariable)

1. Pre-reform spelling (until Brazil 1943/Portugal 1911) of ónix.