(archaic) A type of rose-coloured spinel once thought to be a form of ruby (now usually used attributively: balas-ruby).
Examples
Set with three balas rubies, pearls, and a central diamond, the Three Brothers passed among European royalty to raise money for armies until bought by the Tudors.
Some garnets, e.g., Arizona ruby, Bohemian ruby, Cape ruby, and some spinels, e.g., balas ruby, ruby spinel, are ruby colored.
The passage offers a poetic description of the Buddhas and their former adornments of painted robes and balas rubies.
A highlight will also be a visit to Badakhshan's long lost balas ruby mines and a side trip to the Russian emerald mines.
But in the battle in which balas was overthrown, the Egyptian king also received his death wound.
Anything goes, including gauds of pearls, of enameled gold, even of balas rubies and sapphires.
