crystal

Pluralcrystals

1. 1
   nouncountable

   A mineral fragment that shines and resembles glass or ice.

   A clear crystal hung from a string in the window, catching the light.

   Miners pulled glittering crystals from the rock face.

   Note

   The sense that keeps the word's origin in plain view. Greek krústallos meant "clear ice," from krúos, "frost." The Latin crystallum it passed through meant both crystal and ice. A clear, glittering stone looked like ice that never melted, and the name followed the look. Old English borrowed it as cristalla, and French cristal later reinforced it.

2. 2
   nouncountable

   A solid made of atoms or molecules with long-range order, arranged in a pattern that repeats periodically in three dimensions.

   Each crystal grows as its atoms settle into a fixed, repeating arrangement.

   The lab studied how protein crystals scatter X-rays.

   Similargrain

   Oppositeglass

   Note

   Here the word is defined by inner order, not by sparkle. Its opposite is glass, a solid whose atoms lack the long-range repeating pattern. That is why the fine glassware called crystal is, to a physicist, not a crystal at all. Grain can serve as a synonym in this technical sense.

3. 3
   noununcountable

   A fine type of glassware, or the high-quality glass material used to make it.

   The chandelier's crystal caught the candlelight and threw rainbows across the room.

   Good lead crystal rings with a clear tone when you tap it.

4. 4
   adjectivefiguratively

   Very clear and coherent; easy to understand or follow.

   His summary was crystal clear from the first line to the last.

   Once she drew the diagram, the whole process became crystal.

   Similarclear, lucid

   Oppositeunclear, murky, opaque

   Note

   The figurative use is old. Shakespeare's King John already has a sky "faire and chriſtall," clear enough to make clouds look uglier. Today it lives mostly in the intensifier crystal clear and in its clipped form, a one-word reply. Asked "Do I make myself clear?", someone answers simply "Crystal." That answer is informal, often wry, and suits speech better than formal prose.

5. 5
   adjective

   Made of crystal, the fine glass used for quality glassware.

   He inherited a set of crystal decanters from his grandfather.

   A crystal chandelier hung above the grand staircase.

   Note

   The adjective works after a verb as readily as before a noun. In fantasy writing, walls, ceilings and floors simply are crystal, as in Patricia C. Wrede's Talking to Dragons (1985): "The walls were crystal." It names a material, so it does not take more or very. For brightness or clarity without the material, the word shifts to the figurative "very clear".

6. 6
   nouncountable or uncountable

   The transparent cover fitted over the dial of a watch case to protect the hands and face.

   The watchmaker replaced the cracked crystal with a sapphire one.

   Years of wear had clouded the crystal over the dial.

   Similarglass

7. 7
   nounslanguncountable

   The crystalline form of methamphetamine hydrochloride, a powerful illegal stimulant.

   Dealers were selling crystal on the city's east side.

   She spent years addicted to crystal before getting clean.

   Similarmeth, ice, crank

   Note

   A drug-world clipping of crystal meth, and firmly slang. Joan Didion's Slouching Towards Bethlehem (1968) has a user say he has been "shooting crystal," with the needle tracks to prove it. Context usually does the disambiguating. In writing where a reader might picture a mineral or a wine glass, the full name, methamphetamine, is the safer choice.

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