Now arch. Also 4 vniune. [ad. L. ūniōn-em, ūnio UNIO: cf. ONION sb. 7.
So called (acc. to Pliny, Nat. Hist., IX. xxxv. § 56) because no two are exactly alike.].
A pearl of large size, good quality, and great value, esp. one which is supposed to occur singly.
Freq. in 17th c., esp. in allusion to or echoes of the story related of Cleopatra: see Pliny, loc. cit., § 59. The following early instance is prob. of AF. origin:
1305. Land Cokayne, 89. Þer is saphir and vniune, Carbuncle and astiune.
1592. Soliman & Pers., II. i. Then they play, and when she hath lost her gold, Erastus pointed to her chaine, and then she said: I, were it Cleopatraes vnion.
1599. Hakluyt, Voy., II. 5. Precious unions and costly spyces.
1635. Heywood, Hierarchy, VII. 419. A Pendant Vnion to adorne her Eare, Rarer no Queene was euer seene to weare.
1694. Motteux, Rabelais, IV. iv. 19. Between whose Septenary Links … Rubies, Emeralds,… and Unions were alternatively set in.
a. 1700. Evelyn, Diary, 21 Feb. 1645. The other Union, that Cleopatra was about to dissolve and drink up.
fig. a. 1672. P. Sterry, Posth. Wks. (c. 1680), II. 227. Pearls are called Unions, because they are ever found alone: a Saint’s Pearl is his Union for a contrary Reason, because he is never found alone in his Spiritual Being or Beauty.
b. attrib. with pearl. Also transf.
1656. Blount, Glossogr., s.v., Union Pearls … are the best sort of Pearl. [Hence in Phillips, Bailey, etc.]
1885. R. F. Burton, Arab. Nts. (1887), III. 67. This damsel, the mistress of moons, the union pearl.
