[TURKEY1.]
1. = TURQUOISE.
1607. Topsell, Four-f. Beasts (1658), 5. Mammonets are lesse than an Ape:… his stones greenish blew, like a Turkey stone.
1611. Cotgr., Couleur Turquine,… the colour of the Turkie stone.
1667–8. Pepys, Diary, 18 Feb. She shows me her ring of a Turky-stone, set with little sparks of dyamonds.
a. 1668. Lassels, Voy. Italy (1698), II. 239. They showed us a cup or dish … all of one Turky-stone entire.
1710. Steele, Tatler, No. 245, ¶ 2. Another [ring] of Turkey Stone.
1820. Lady Granville, Lett. (1894), I. 188. A beautiful ring, a turkey stone set in gold.
1877. W. Jones, Finger-ring, 158. The turquoise, turkise, or turkey-stone having, from remote periods, been supposed to possess talismanic properties.
2. A hard, fine-grained, siliceous rock imported from the Levant for whetstones; novaculite; a whetstone made of this. Also attrib.
1816. P. Cleaveland, Min., 364. The Novaculite is employed in the arts under the names of hone, oil-stone, Turkey stone, and whetstone.
1840. Civil Eng. & Arch. Jrnl., III. 421/1. A scraping tool … carefully sharpened on a Turkey stone.
1867. J. Hogg, Microsc., I. iii. 210. Polish … on a hone of Turkey-stone kept wet with water.
1875. Sir T. Seaton, Fret Cutting, 3. Oil-stones are sold by weight, Turkey-stone being the dearest, and also by far the best. Ibid., 117. A Turkey-stone slip will polish them.
