topazes

Noun

topaz (usually uncountable, plural topazes)

1. (usually) A silicate mineral of aluminium and fluorine, usually tinted by impurities.
2. (usually) An often clear, yellowish-brown gemstone cut from this.
   • In the market‐place stand the fruitsellers, who sell all kinds of fruit: ripe figs, with their bruised purple flesh, melons, smelling of musk and yellow as topazes, citrons and rose‐apples and clusters of white grapes, round red‐gold oranges, and oval lemons of green gold.1891, Oscar Wilde, A House of Pomegranates, Moffat, Yard and Company, published 1918, page 123
3. (usually) A yellowish-brown color, like that of the gemstone.
4. (usually) Or (gold or yellow), in blazoning by precious stones.
   • Elgin. Topaz a Saltier and Chief Ruby, on a Canton Pearl a Lyon Rampant Saphyr, which last is their paternal Coat; and the Field Topaz, and Saltier, and Chief Ruby, was the Arms of King Robert the Bruce, they altering the Field from Pearl (as he bore it) to Topaz. / Eglington. Quarterly, 1st and...1720, Francis Nichols, Rudiments of Honour, page 296
5. (usually) Either of two species of very large hummingbirds in the genus Topaza.
6. (usually) A ruby-topaz hummingbird, Chrysolampis mosquitus, the male of which has bright ruby feathers on the head and topaz on the throat

See all 10 meanings of topaz