nephrite
/ˈnɛfˌɹaɪt/noun
nephrite is a noun meaning “A semi-precious stone, one of the two types of stone commonly referred to as jade (the other being jadeite)” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled N-E-P-H-R-I-T-E and has 2 syllables, and it appears about once in every 15 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data). The plural of nephrite is nephrites.
What does nephrite mean?
noun
- 1
A semi-precious stone, one of the two types of stone commonly referred to as jade (the other being jadeite).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How do you pronounce nephrite?
- /ˈnɛfˌɹaɪt/
Nephrite has 2 syllables (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Forms of nephrite
- nephrites plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How common is nephrite?
Nephrite appears about once in every 15 million words in written English, the 118,441st most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Nephrite in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense semi-precious stone:
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does nephrite come from?
From Latin lapis nephriticus, via Ancient Greek λίθος (líthos) νεφριτικός (nephritikós), meaning kidney stone, because jade was believed to have cured kidney stones.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).