Today diamond symbolizes wealth, durability, status, and peerless quality. Across time and cultures, diamond has also been associated with invulnerability, lightning, magic, healing, protection, and poisoning. In unraveling the history and associations of diamond, we also need to know the history of the words attached to it: Did the words used by the ancient Indians or Greeks signify the same thing they do today, or something very different?

"Diamond" comes from the Greek adamao, transliterated as "adamao," "I tame" or "I subdue." The adjective "adamas" was used to describe the hardest substance known, and eventually became synonymous with diamond. It is difficult to determine at what point in history the hardest known substance become diamond. "Adamas" may have previously referred to the next hardest mineral, corundum -- the gem variety is sapphire -- or to something else altogether. Tracing the history of diamond is complicated by this problem with names.