CAMEO  , a

term of doubtful origin, applied in the first instance to engraved work executed in relief on hard or precious stones . It is also applied to imitations of such stones in glass, called " pastes," or on the shells of molluscous animals . A cameo is therefore the converse of an intaglio, which consists of an incised or sunk engraving in the same class of materials . For the history of this branch of art, and for an account of some of its most remarkable examples, see GEM . The origin of the word is doubtful and has been a matter of copious controversy . The New English Dictionary quotes its use in a Sarum inventory of 1222, " lapis unus cameu " and " magnus camehu." The word is in current use in the 13th century . Thus Matthew Paris, in his Life of Abbot Leofric of St Albans, in the Abbatum S . Albani Vitae, says: " retentis quibusdam nobilibus lapidibus insculptis, quos camaeos vulgariter appellamus." In variant forms the word has found its way into most languages, e.g . Latin, camahutus, camahelus, camaynus; Italian, chammeo, chameo; French, camahieu, chemahou, camaut, camaieu . The following may be mentioned among the derivations that have been proposed: von Hammer: camaut, the hump of a camel; Littre and others: camateum, an assumed Low Latin form from Kaµamevety and Kaµarov; Chabouillet and Babelon: KEt,t lXta, treasures, connecting the word in particular with the dispersion of treasures from Constantinople, in 1204; King: Arabic camea, an amulet . For a bibliography of the question, see Babelon, Cat. des Garages . . de la Bibliotheque Nationale, p. iv .