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of valuable or costly materials or ingredients; procured at great outlay; highly valued; precious; sumptuous; costly; as, a rich dress; rich silk or fur; rich presents. Like to rich and various gems. Milton.

That which appears rich, sumptuous, precious, or the like. The riche of heaven's pavement, trodden gold. Milton.

Specifically, a circular ornament of gold or other precious material worn on the finger, or attached to the ear, the nose, or some other part of the person; as, a wedding ring. Upon his thumb he had of gold a ring. Chaucer. The dearest ring in Venice will I give you. Shak.

A necklace of diamonds or other precious stones, esp. one of several strings.

and with a convex face formed of triangular facets in rows; -- said of diamonds and other precious stones. See Rose diamond, under Rose. Cf. Brilliant, n.

A precious stone of a carmine red color, sometimes verging to violet, or intermediate between carmine and hyacinth red. It is a red crystallized variety of corundum.

A precious stone. See Sardius.

A precious stone, probably a carnelian, one of which was set in Aaron's breastplate. Ex. xxviii. 17.

cure green color, often with a spotted or mottled appearance resembling a serpent's skin. Precious, or noble, serpentine is translucent and of a rich oil-green color.

To fix, as a precious stone, in a border of metal; to place in a setting; hence, to place in or amid something which serves as a setting; as, to set glass in a sash. And him too rich a jewel to be set In vulgar metal for a vulgar use. Dryden.

n earthen vessel, or a like brittle substance, as the shell of an egg or snail. Shak. The precious dish Broke into shards of beauty on the board. E. Arnold.

A tree that furnished the precious wood of which the ark, tables, altars, boards, etc., of the Jewish tabernacle were made; -- now believed to have been the wood of the Acacia Seyal, which is hard, fine grained, and yellowish brown in color.

Precious; costly.

sleeping; to lodge. [R.] Blackw. Mag. To sleep away, to spend in sleep; as, to sleep away precious time. -- To sleep off, to become free from by sleep; as, to sleep off drunkeness or fatigue.

A single diamond in a setting; also, sometimes, a precious stone of any kind set alone. Diamond solitaires blazing on his breast and wrists. Mrs. R. H. Davis.

A precious stone; a gem. "Many a rich stone." Chaucer. "Inestimable stones, unvalued jewels." Shak.

The sweeping of workshops where precious metals are worked, containing filings, etc. Sweep net, a net for drawing over a large compass. -- Sweep of the tiller (Naut.), a circular frame on which the tiller traverses.

One who extracts the residuum of precious metals from the sweepings, potsherds, etc., of refineries of gold and silver, or places where these metals are used.

Any small cell, or like place, in which some holy or precious things was deposited or kept. Specifically: --

balsams or resins. Let Araby extol her happy coast, Her fragrant flowers, her trees with precious tears. Dryden.