Jasper

How to spell jasper

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce jasper

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does jasper mean?

1. nounAn opaque, often reddish-brown variety of quartz used as a semi-precious stone and for carving.

Jasper in a sentence

• The museum displayed a polished bowl carved from red jasper.

• She chose a pendant set with a smooth piece of jasper rather than a diamond.

Where does jasper come from?

Language of origin: Greek

Jasper comes from the Greek iaspis, the name of a speckled, opaque stone prized in the ancient world. The Greek word was almost certainly borrowed from a Semitic source, related to the Hebrew yashpheh and similar forms in Akkadian and Arabic that named a precious stone. From Greek it passed into Latin as iaspis and then into Old French as jaspre or jaspe, which is where English picked it up in the 1300s. The modern English spelling settled on the form 'jasper', keeping the older 'p' but adding the familiar '-er' ending that English speakers expect. Today it names an opaque variety of quartz, usually red, brown, or yellow, and the unusual middle, the 'sp' followed by 'er' rather than a more obvious 'jasp' or 'jaspar', is the main thing a writer has to remember.

How the word is built

• jasper (a single borrowed root; from Greek iaspis, a speckled stone; not built from a prefix or suffix)