Definition of "chatoyant" []

• Having a changeable luster. (adjective)
• A chatoyant stone or gemstone, such as the cat's-eye. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "The varying colors and luster of the stones is called a chatoyant effect, and is due to internal microscopic hollow channels in the stone itself."
• "Tigers Eye is what they call "chatoyant," - the so called cat's eye effect."
• "Another interesting variety of this blue sapphire is one known as "chatoyant"; this has a rapidly changing lustre, which seems to undulate between a green-yellow and a luminous blue, with a phosphorescent glow, or fire, something like that seen in the eyes of a cat in the dark, or the steady, burning glow observed when the cat is fascinating a bird -- hence its name."