Meaning & use
blood diamond
Last updated
Meanings
nouncountable
A diamond mined in a war zone and sold to pay for armed conflict, often with abuse of the people who dig it.
Grammar: Countable: a blood diamond, many blood diamonds.
Patterns
- trade in blood diamonds
- a blood diamond from somewhere
Activists urged shoppers to ask jewelers whether a stone could be a blood diamond.
The film about a blood diamond made many viewers rethink where jewelry comes from.
International rules now try to keep every blood diamond out of legal markets.
nouncountablefigurative
Any gem or valuable resource whose sale is tied to violence or exploitation, used figuratively.
Grammar: Usually figurative and followed by a comparison: the cobalt in phones is a kind of blood diamond.
Patterns
- the blood diamond of something
Some critics call cheap fast fashion the blood diamond of the clothing industry.
Campaigners warned that the metal could become the next blood diamond.
The company worked to ensure that no product it sold was a blood diamond of electronics.
Word forms
| plural | blood diamonds |
|---|
Common combinations
- trade in blood diamonds
- The group was accused of trade in blood diamonds.
- ban blood diamonds
- Several countries moved to ban blood diamonds.
- buy a blood diamond
- No one wants to buy a blood diamond by accident.
- blood diamond trade
- The blood diamond trade funded years of fighting.
- certified free of blood diamonds
- The store claims its stones are certified free of blood diamonds.
Synonyms and how they differ
- conflict diamond
- Conflict diamond is the official and more neutral term used by governments, while blood diamond is the vivid popular name.
- war diamond
- War diamond is less common and simply stresses the link to war, without the strong emotional tone of blood diamond.
- rough diamond
- A rough diamond is an uncut stone and says nothing about where it came from.
Opposites
Word family
- diamond noun
- a hard, clear gemstone
- conflict mineral noun
- a resource sold to fund fighting
- Kimberley Process proper noun
- the international scheme meant to stop conflict diamonds
Commonly confused: blood diamond or rough diamond?
blood diamond vs rough diamond
A rough diamond is a stone before cutting, and the phrase can also describe a person with good qualities under a rough manner. It has no link to violence.
Practice
Campaigners asked jewelers to prove that none of their stones was a ___ that had helped finance a civil war.
Choose one answer.
A blood diamond is one sold to fund violence. A rough diamond is simply uncut, which is tempting because it also concerns raw stones but has nothing to do with war.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “blood diamond”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.