Also 7 amandine. [a corruption of the earlier ALABANDINE. See the change in Phillips below. Sometimes by false form-assoc. written almondine.]
‘An alumina iron garnet of a beautiful violet or amethystine tint; the word is said to be a corruption of Pliny’s alabandine, a term applied to the garnet from its being cut and polished at Alabanda.’ Westropp, Prec. Stones, 1874.
1658. Phillips, Alabandine, a kind of stone, that provokes to bleed. [Almandine not mentioned.] Ibid. (1678), Alabandine or Amandine, a kind of blew and red Stone, which very much excites to bleeding. [Also a cross-ref.] Almandine, see Alabandine. Ibid. (1696), Almandine, or Alabandine, a sort of Ruby softer and lighter than the oriental. [Alabandine not separately entered.] Ibid. (1706), Almandine, a coarse sort of Ruby, etc. [Alabandine not entered at all.]
1804. Edin. Rev., III. 304. Karsten constituted some varieties of the noble garnets into almandines.
c. 1825. Beddoes, Crocod., in Poems, 108. With sanguine almandines and rainy pearl.
1830. Tennyson, Merman, 32. But I would throw to them back in mine Turkis and agate and almondine.
1872. Browning, Fifine, 13. That string of mock turquoise, those almandines of glass.
