Onyx

Inhale, exhale. Deep breaths. Peace, find your inner peace. Onyx is a banded variety of chalcedony. The colors of its bands range from white to almost every color. Commonly, specimens of onyx contain bands of black and/or white. Onyx comes through Latin, from the Greek ὄνυξ, meaning "claw" or "fingernail". With its fleshtone color, onyx can be said to resemble a fingernail. The English word "nail" is cognate with the Greek word. It has a long history of use for hardstone carving and jewellery, where it is usually cut as a cabochon or into beads. It has also been used for intaglio and hardstone cameo engraved gems, where the bands make the image contrast with the ground. Some onyx is natural but much of the material in commerce is produced by the staining of agate.