pearl
Pluralpearls
Pluralpearls
Formspearls, pearling, pearled
- 1A hard, lustrous, usually round body of nacre that forms inside certain mollusks, especially pearl oysters and river mussels, typically around an irritating particle, and is used in jewelry.
The diver pried open the oyster and found a small pink pearl lodged near the hinge.
She wore a strand of freshwater pearls that had belonged to her grandmother.
Note
The gem the other senses borrow from has a name of uncertain origin. It reached English through Old French perle and probably goes back to Latin perna, a haunch and also a shellfish shaped like a leg of lamb; another account points to Latin perula, "little bag". Pearls grow in river mussels as well as in oysters, which is where freshwater pearls come from.
- 2A small but valuable piece of knowledge, especially a short saying or practical tip that helps in making decisions.
The senior nurse shared a few clinical pearls about spotting sepsis early.
Her best pearl for new managers was simple: never make a big decision on a Friday afternoon.
- 3Something precious or highly valued, such as a person of rare worth.
The new housekeeper turned out to be a pearl, and the family could not imagine managing without her.
The little harbor town is the pearl of the coast, and summer visitors fill it every year.
Note
The figure runs two ways. One person can be the pearl, as in McNeile's Bulldog Drummond (1920), where a wife is a pearl among women; or many people together become one treasure, as in Shakespeare's Macbeth (c. 1606): compassed with thy kingdom's pearl. Both are praise; the nugget of advice is its narrower cousin.
- 4Nacre, or mother-of-pearl: the hard, lustrous material that pearls are made of.
The guitar's fretboard is inlaid with pearl and abalone.
She sewed six small pearl buttons onto the blouse.
Similarnacre
- 5Short for pearl tapioca.
I'll have a large milk tea with extra pearl, please.
The shop cooks a fresh batch of pearl every two hours so it stays chewy.
Note
The clipped name works where the drink makes the meaning plain, as on bubble-tea menus: pearl milk tea, a large tea with extra pearl. Used that way it is often uncountable, like the full name; counted, pearls are the balls themselves. Away from the counter, pearl tapioca in full keeps it from being read as the gem.
- 6To set or decorate with pearls or mother-of-pearl, or figuratively with things that look like them.
Workers at the bridal shop pearl each bodice by hand, which takes several days.
Morning dew pearled the spider's web strung across the gate.
Note
Drops can do the adorning too: in Anthony Burgess's Beds in the East (1959), sweat pearled his tough brown skin. The figure keeps the grammar of the literal verb, with the decorated surface as its object. With the beading verb the liquid itself pearls on a surface and takes no object, so sweat pearled his skin and sweat pearled on his skin are two different constructions.
- 7Of a liquid, to gather into small beads or droplets.
Condensation pearled on the outside of the cold glass.
Sweat began to pearl on his forehead as the interview dragged on.
Similarbead
Note
The liquid gathers but has not yet run, and that moment is what the verb catches: in Lori Power's Backlash Bounty (2022) the fluid pearled but didn't run. Blood, sweat, rain and condensation are its usual subjects, and it belongs to descriptive prose; bead says the same thing more plainly.
- 8To make something into small round grains that resemble pearls in shape.
The mill pearls the barley, grinding each grain down to a small round bead.
Some farmers pearl their own farro so it cooks faster.
- 9To give something a luster or iridescence like that of pearls.
The factory pearls the glass of each bulb so the light comes out soft and even.
Car makers pearl the paint with a shimmering top coat that changes color in the sun.
Note
The verb has a factory side: New Scientist reported in 1993 on new technology for pearling light bulbs. Its object is the surface being finished, such as glass or a coat of paint, and the finished article is described as pearled: a pearled bulb, pearled glass.
- 10To hunt or search for pearls.
As a young man he went pearling off the northern coast every season.
Divers who pearl in these waters still work from small wooden boats.
- 11In surfing, to sink the nose of one's board into the water, often on takeoff; also said of the board's nose.
I pearled on my first three waves and got tossed over the falls each time.
Longboards with round noses tend to pearl when the wave gets steep.
Note
A surfer who pearls usually wipes out: the nose catches, the board stops short and the rider is thrown forward. It tends to happen on a steep wave with the rider's weight too far forward, and a round nose digs in more readily than a pointed one. Either the surfer or the board can pearl: I pearled, the nose pearled.
- 12A capsule of gelatin or a similar material that holds a liquid, for example a medicine.
Each pearl contains a measured dose of fish oil sealed in soft gelatin.
The pharmacist suggested garlic oil pearls for patients who dislike the taste of fresh garlic.
- 13Of water plants, to form visible bubbles on their stems and leaves during photosynthesis, usually in an aquarium or similar tank.
With strong lighting and added carbon dioxide, many carpet plants will pearl within a few hours.
Hobbyists love watching their stem plants pearling under bright lights.
Note
Aquarium keepers watch for it as a sign of strong light and ample carbon dioxide. The bubbles are mostly oxygen from photosynthesis, which usually dissolves unseen and beads on the leaves mainly once the water holds about as much as it can; a water change can set plants pearling as well.
- 14A euphemistic slang word for the clitoris, used mainly in sexual and erotic contexts.
His fingers found her pearl, and she caught her breath.
She told him plainly that most of her pleasure came from her pearl, not from anything else.
Note
Erotic writing uses the gem as a coy image: the small, hidden, prized pearl stands in for the anatomical word. It sits between euphemism and vulgar slang, softer than blunt terms yet plainly sexual. In medical, educational or everyday talk, clitoris is the word to use.
- 15A whitish speck on the eye, or a pale film covering it.
A pearl had formed over the cat's right eye, clouding its sight.
The physician noted a faint pearl on the cornea and prescribed drops.
Note
A pearl clouds the eye, so the word lent itself to rebuke. John Milton, in 1641, warns an opponent not to boast of his eyes, since he may have Balaam's disease, a pearl in the eye: a blindness of judgment rather than of sight.
- 16In heraldry, the name for argent, the silver or white tincture, in the system that names tinctures after precious stones.
(1) Pearl, a Cross, Ruby, with the Effigies of our Saviour thereon, Topaz, born in Memory of one of the Family's fighting against the Turks.
1754, John Lodge, The Peerage of IrelandSimilarargent
Note
Heralds once blazoned the arms of peers with precious stones in place of the usual tinctures, and pearl was the stone for silver, beside ruby for red, sapphire for blue, topaz for gold and diamond for black. John Lodge's The Peerage of Ireland (1754) still blazons a coat as Pearl, a Cross, Ruby. The fashion was later dropped, and argent is the word used today.
- 17A size of printing type between diamond and agate, standardized at 5 points.
The pocket dictionary was set in pearl, which kept it slim but strained the reader's eyes.
The compositor reached for a case of pearl to fit the long table onto a single page.
Note
Before type was measured in points, printers named each size, and pearl was among the smallest, between diamond and agate. The same size is now simply 5-point type. Pearl is dated and turns up mainly in older printing manuals and type specimens, so a modern specification gives the point size instead.
- 18In the video game Minecraft, to teleport by throwing an ender pearl.
Speedrunners often pearl over walls to save a few seconds.
He tried pearling up to the tower but landed short and fell.
- 19A jewel or gem of any kind.
There is gold, and multitude of pearles: but a precious vessel the lips of knowledge.
1635, Douay Rheims Bible, Proverbs 20:15Note
Older English could call any precious stone a pearl. The Douay-Rheims Bible of 1635 sets gold beside a multitude of pearls in Proverbs, meaning jewels of every kind. That wider use has died out: a modern reader will picture the gem formed inside a shell, so for stones in general write jewels or gems.
- 20One of the ring of small knobs that together form the bur on a deer's antler.
A single pearl had broken off the ring at the bur of the left antler.
Taxidermists take care not to chip the pearls when cleaning a mounted rack.
- 21To have the look of pearl or of pearls.
- 22The brill, a fish closely related to the turbot.
- 23A tern whose feathers are light in color.
- 24A fringe or border along the edge of something.
Showing meanings only.
Practice
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Origin
From Middle English perle, from Old French perle, whose origin is uncertain: probably from an unrecorded Medieval Latin *pernula, from Latin perna (“haunch; a sea shellfish shaped like a leg of lamb”), though it is also traced to Medieval Latin perla, from Latin perula (“little bag”). The printing sense comes from Jean Jannon's name for the type of his tiny 1620s editions of Vergil, Horace and the New Testament, and the surfing sense from a supposed likeness to pearl diving.