jasper

• (US) enPR: jăsʹpər
• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈdʒæspə/

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From Middle English jasper, jaspre, from Old French jaspre, a variant of jaspe (modern French jaspe), from Latin iaspis, from Ancient Greek ἴασπις (íaspis).

jasper (countable and uncountable, plural jaspers)

1. (obsolete) Any bright-coloured kind of chalcedony apart from cornelian.
2. An opaque, impure variety of quartz, of red, yellow, and other dull colors, breaking conchoidally with a smooth surface.
3. Jasperware pottery.

• jasperware

From the male personal name Jasper.

jasper (plural jaspers)

1. (Britain, West Country, Somerset, colloquial) A wasp.
2. (US, slang) A person, a guy, especially seen as naïve or simple.
   • 1975, Tom Waits, ‘Nighthawk Postcards (From Easy Street)’:

     Standing on the corner like a just-got-in-town jasper.

   • 2006, Thomas Pynchon, Against the Day, Vintage 2007, p. 122:

     “That jasper,” sniggered Darby, “never pulled out his ‘dummy’ for nothing but pissing, I bet you!”

   • 1968, Charles Portis, True Grit, The Saturday Evening Post

     "I stood there through almost an hour of it before they called Rooster Cogburn to the stand. I had guessed wrong as to which one he was, picking out a younger and slighter man with a badge on his shirt. And I was surprised when an old one-eyed jasper that was built along the lines of Grover Cleveland went up and was sworn."

• japers

jasper

1. apply different colors of paint flowing together in order to make it look like jasper stone

   Jasper la tranche d’un livre.

• “jasper” in le Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).