gem

[jem] /dʒɛm/
noun
1.
a cut and polished precious stone or pearl fine enough for use in jewelry.
2.
something likened to or prized as such a stone because of its beauty or worth:
His painting was the gem of the collection.
3.
a person held in great esteem or affection.
4.
muffin (def 1).
5.
British Printing. a 4-point type of a size between brilliant and diamond.
verb (used with object), gemmed, gemming.
6.
to adorn with or as with gems; begem.
adjective
7.
Jewelry. noting perfection or very high quality:
gem color; a gem ruby.
Origin
1275-1325; Middle English gemme < Old French < Latin gemma bud, jewel; replacing Middle English yimme, Old English gim(m) < Latin
Related forms
gemless, adjective
gemlike, adjective
Synonyms
2. treasure, prize, jewel, pearl.
Examples from the web for gem
  • It was beautiful, a gem of pure happiness that life throws you once in a while.
  • He had it cut into a five-carat gem and set as a ring.
  • These are mainly residential streets to the left, but you never know what little gem you might find.
  • Jewellers and gem traders seem to have been the targets of two of the bombs.
  • It spotlights the gem that was later to give the style its name.
  • More than a dozen works of public art are the area's hidden gem.
  • After all, its first two changes alone will shine enough light on murky practices to revolutionise the gem trade.
  • We can't even imagine what we'd think if we'd been the ones to discover this gem.
  • Come back next month for another gem from the archives.
  • That's the problem with exploration-one doesn't always find a gem or a pristine artifact gleaming on the seafloor.
British Dictionary definitions for gem

gem

/dʒɛm/
noun
1.
a precious or semiprecious stone used in jewellery as a decoration; jewel
2.
a person or thing held to be a perfect example; treasure
3.
a size of printer's type, approximately equal to 4 point
4.
(NZ) a type of small sweet cake
verb gems, gemming, gemmed
5.
(transitive) to set or ornament with gems
Derived Forms
gemlike, adjective
gemmy, adjective
Word Origin
C14: from Old French gemme, from Latin gemma bud, precious stone
Word Origin and History for gem
n.

Old English gimm "precious stone, gem, jewel," also "eye," from Latin gemma "precious stone, jewel," originally "bud," perhaps from the root *gen- "to produce," or from PIE *gembh- "tooth, nail." Of persons, from late 13c. Forms in -i-, -y- were lost early 14c., and the modern form of the word probably representing a Middle English borrowing from Old French gemme (12c.). As a verb, from c.1600, "to adorn with gems;" mid-12c. as "to bud."

gem in Technology
operating system
One of the first commercially available GUIs. Borrowing heavily from the Macintosh WIMP-style interface it was available for both the IBM compatible market (being packaged with Amstrad's original PC series) and more successfully for the Atari ST range. The PC version was produced by Digital Research (more famous for DR-DOS, their MS-DOS clone), and was not developed very far. The Atari version, however, continued to be developed until the early 1990s and the later versions supported 24-bit colour modes, full colour icons and a nice looking sculpted 3D interface.
(1997-01-10)
Related Abbreviations for gem

GEM

  1. Gemini
  2. ground-effect machine