Noun: crystal
| Singular | crystal |
| Plural | crystals |
Sample Sentences
-
He tells me he's been shooting crystal, which I already pretty much know because he does not bother to keep his sleeves rolled down over the needle tracks. [1968, Joan Didion, “Slouching Towards Bethlehem”, in Slouching Towards Bethlehem:]
-
Come, let's away. My loue, giue me thy Lippes: Looke to my Chattels, and my Moueables: [...] Goe, cleare they Chryſtalls. Yokefellowes in Armes, let vs to France (Come, let's away. My love, kiss me. Look after my goods and property … Go, dry your eyes. Comrades in arms, let us to France) [1599 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Life of Henry the Fift”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene iii], page 75, column 2:]
Nouns inflected like crystal
soldier's woundwort,
Nicosian,
whopper,
greypate,
tactile sign language,
chronotrope,
Rosie Lee,
dissentient,
photoinactivator,
sulphonediimine,
coastal waterfall,
residuary devise,
bituminization,
nitrosonaphthol,
smṛiti,
geosphere,
backscreen,
mensuralist,
flocculate,
flocculant, etc. (List truncated at 20 nouns)
Etymology
From Middle English crystal, cristal, criȝstall, representing a merger of Old English cristalla (from Latin crystallus) and Anglo-Norman cristall, Old French cristal (from Latin crystallum). The Latin is derived from Ancient Greek κρύσταλλος (krústallos, “clear ice”), from κρύος (krúos, “frost”), from Proto-Indo-European *krews- (“hard, hard outer surface, crust”). See: Middle English Nouns '
crystal', Old English Nouns '
cristalla', Ancient Greek Nouns '
κρύσταλλος'.