lapidary

From Middle English lapidarie, from Old French lapidaire, from Latin lapidārius (“of stones”) (later used as a noun ‘stone-cutter’), from lapis (“stone”).

• IPA^(key): /ˈlæpɪdəɹi/

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lapidary (countable and uncountable, plural lapidaries)

1. A person who cuts, polishes, engraves, or deals in gems.
   • 2013, Peter G. Read, Gemmology, Elsevier, page 289:

     In the very early days of gemstone fashioning, a polisher or lapidary would cut and polish both diamonds and other gemstones.

2. The field in which such a person works, a subfield of gemology.
3. The process of such work. (Can we add an example for this sense?)
4. An expert in gems or precious stones; a connoisseur of lapidary work.
5. (archaic) A treatise on precious stones.

lapidary (not comparable)

1. Pertaining to gems and precious stones, or the art of working them.
2. Suitable for inscriptions; efficient, stately, concise; embodying the refinement and precision characteristic of stone-cutting.
   • 1831, Thomas Carlyle, “Getting Under Way”, in Sartor Resartus: The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdröckh. […], London: Chapman and Hall, […], →OCLC, book second, page 91:

     His grand principle is, that lapidary inscriptions, of what sort soever, should be Historical rather than Lyrical.

   • 2000, Karen Armstrong, The Battle for God: Fundamentalism in Judaism, Christianity and Islam, Knopf/HarperCollins, p. 71

     The sole truth was that supplied by mathematics or by such lapidary propositions as “What's done cannot be undone,” which was irrefutably correct.

• gemcutter
• diamantaire