Carbuncle (gemstone)

A red and a blue garnet

A carbuncle /ˈkɑrbʌŋkəl/ is an archaic name given to any red gemstone. The name applied particularly to red garnet.^[1] The word occurs in four places in most English translations of the Bible. Each use originates from the Vulgate's Latin translation of the Septuagint's Greek term Anthrax – meaning coal, in reference to the color of burning coal; in this sense, a carbuncle is usually taken to mean a gem, particularly a deep-red garnet, unfaceted and convex. In the same place in the masoretic text is the Hebrew word נופח or nofech (no'-fekh); however, the Hebrew definition is less definite and the precise color of the gems is not known.

The word is believed to have originated from the Latin: carbunculus, originally a small coal; diminutive of carbon-, carbo: charcoal or ember, but also a carbuncle stone, "precious stones of a red or fiery colour", usually garnets.^[2]

Cultural references

Red garnet

• Exodus 28:17 and 39:10 both refer to the carbuncle's use as the third stone in the breastplate of the Hoshen.
• Ezekiel 28:13 refers to the carbuncle's presence in the Garden of Eden.
• Isaiah 54:12 uses carbuncle to convey the value of the Lord's blessing [and promise to] His faithful barren woman servant: (KJV Is 54:1) "Sing, O barren, thou that didst not bear, and cry aloud, thou that didst not travail with child;") Her husband and Maker is God, "Thy Maker is thine husband." (Is 54:5 KJV)

"And I will make thy her windows of agates, and thy her gates of carbuncles, and all thy her borders of pleasant stones."

• The gem is the stolen item in question in the Sherlock Holmes tale "The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle."
• A carbuncle plays a mystic role in Nathaniel Hawthorne's story, "The Great Carbuncle."
• Hamlet by William Shakespeare refers to carbuncles in act 2 scene 2 line 401:

"With eyes like carbuncles, the hellish Pyrrhus..."

• In John Milton's Paradise Lost, Book 9, Satan's eyes are like carbuncles (line 500), an image Milton may have borrowed from the Roman de la Rose^[3]

References

Look up carbuncle in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.