Short for LAPIS LAZULI. Also attrib., as lazuli-finch, a brilliant fringilloid bird (Passerina amœna) of the western U.S.

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1789.  E. Darwin, Bot. Gard., II. (1791), 157. Light piers of lazuli the dome surround.

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1798.  Sotheby, trans. Wieland’s Oberon (1826), II. 172. There gold and lazuli the walls o’erlaid.

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1824.  Wiffen, Tasso, XVI. xxiii. Flowers that, like lazuli in gold, impressed A deeper charm on the beholder’s mind.

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1831.  A. Wilson & Bonaparte, Amer. Ornith., IV. 132. Fringilla amœna, Bonaparte, Lazuli Finch.

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