Emerald

See also: emerald

English

Etymology

The Queensland town takes its name from the emerald and other precious stone deposits in the area and from the pastoral run Emerald Downs, a name chosen circa 1860 by pastoralist Peter Fitzallan MacDonald. It is unclear if emeralds were found in or around Emerald.

The given name is a modern coinage from the name of the gemstone, representing a vernacular form of Esmeralda.

Proper noun

Emerald

1. A town in Queensland, Australia.
2. The Rural Municipality of Emerald No. 277, a rural municipality in eastern Saskatchewan, Canada.
3. (rare) A female given name from English.
   • 1954 Theodore Sturgeon, The Golden Helix, in Leo Marguelis:Three Times Infinity, Fawcett Publications 1958, page 109:

     The child, a girl, was albino like April, and had exactly April's deep red eyes. Sol and Libra named her Emerald, a green name and a ground-term rather than a sky-term, as if in open expression of the slow spell worked on them all by Viridis.

   • 1978, Mary Manning, The last chronicles of Ballyfungus, page 48:

     Mrs. Emerald Walsh was helping out at the presbytery.