avanturine

Noun

aventurine (countable and uncountable, plural aventurines)

1. A kind of brownish glass containing gold-coloured spangles.
   • [pages 244–245] Aventurine is a brown glass flux, containing very small glittering particles, which give it a peculiarly glittering appearance. It was formerly manufactured into objects of art and ornament at Murano near Venice. [...] The statements which are found respecting it in technological...1843 March 1, [Friedrich] Wöhler, “Manufacture and Analysis of Aventurine Glass”, in William Francis, Henry Croft, editors, The Chemical Gazette, or Journal of Practical Chemistry, in All Its...

   Synonyms:

   goldstone

2. (broadly) A variety of translucent quartz, spangled throughout with scales of yellow mica.
   • The Sandaresus, an Arabian stone, classed by Pliny [the Elder] among the Carbunculi, seems to have been our Aventurine, for he describes it as full of golden stars shining through a transparent substance, not from the surface, but from within the body of the stone. The true Aventurine, or...1860, C[harles] W[illiam] King, “Aventurine”, in Antique Gems: Their Origin, Uses, and Value as Interpreters of Ancient History; and as Illustrative of Ancient Art: With Hints to Gem Collectors...