RUBY

Definitions

1. 1. 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.
2. 2. The color of a ruby; carmine red; a red tint. The natural ruby of your cheeks. Shak.
3. 3. That which has the color of the ruby, as red wine. Hence, a red blain or carbuncle.
4. 4. See Agate, n., 2. [Eng.]
5. 5. Any species of South American humming birds of the genus Clytolæma. The males have a ruby-colored throat or breast. Ruby of arsenic, Ruby of sulphur (Chem.), a glassy substance of a red color and a variable composition, but always consisting chiefly of the disulphide of arsenic; -- called also ruby sulphur. -- Ruby of zinc (Min.), zinc sulphide; the mineral zinc blende or sphalerite. -- Ruby silver (Min.), red silver. See under Red.