Glossary of Jewelry terms

Akoya: Cultured pearls grown primarily in Japan and China.

Blemish: An imperfection on a diamond's surface that may or may not be recognizable.

Body color: The basic color of a pearl: white, cream, yellow, pink, silver or black. A pearl can also have a hint of secondary color (see overtone).

Brilliance: The amount of white light reflected that radiates from the diamond's surface. A more properly proportioned cut results in a more brilliant diamond.

Brilliant Cut: A round diamond that contains 58 facets.

Carat: Measurement used for the weight of a diamond. One carat is equal to 100 points or one fifth of a gram.

Center Stone: The central, dominant stone in a piece of jewelry set with multiple stones.

Clarity: A graded scale that measures the amount of imperfections within a diamond. The ranges from flawless (FL) to severely included (I3).

Cloud: Minor inclusions clustered within a diamond.

Color: Color tones of a diamond that are graded on a scale of D (colorless) to Z (yellow brown).

Comfort Fit: The rounded finish on a ring's interior, designed to provide additional comfort for long-wear.

Culet: The bottom point of the diamond which may or may not contain a facet.

Cultured pearls: Pearls cultivated by artificial insertion of a small bead, often made of mother-of-pearl and mantle tissue, into an oyster.

Cut (Make): The proportion and symmetry of a diamond determines the stone's brilliance and dispersion capabilities.

Depth: A diamond's height from culet to table.

Depth %: Height divided by width.

Eye-clean: When viewing with the naked eye, a diamond with no visible inclusions or imperfections.

Facet: A diamond's flat, polished surfaces.

Fire: Spectral colors that radiate from the inside of a diamond. Also called dispersion.

Fluorescence: When exposed to ultraviolet light, the surface of some diamonds exhibit an illuminating bluish color.

Freshwater pearl: A pearl produced by a fresh water mollusk.

Girdle: A diamond's outer edge or periphery.

Head: Attached to the ring shank, the head of the ring holds the center stone or solitaire in place.

Head Shape: The head shape of any ring is determined by the shape of the gemstone that it is intended to hold. For example, the head that holds an ideal-cut diamond is round, where a head intended to hold a princess-cut diamond is square.

Ideal Cut: A round diamond that is perfectly proportioned.

Inclusion: An imperfection within a diamond that typically manifests in the crystal. May or may not be visible to the naked eye but noticeable when magnified.

Luster: A combination of the pearl's exterior shine and glow from within. Created by light reflected from tiny crystals in the nacre.

Mabe pearl: Cultured pearls grown against an oyster's shell rather than in an oyster's tissue. The result is a semi-spherical pearl with a relatively flat back.

Mantle: Soft tissue located inside an oyster. Man-made pearls are formed when the mantle surrounds a surgically inserted nucleus.

Metal Type: Fine jewelry is generally designed in the precious metals gold, platinum and silver.

Millimeter: Unit of measure in the metric system used to determine a pearl's diameter, equal to about 1/25th of an inch.

Mohs hardness scale: A scale developed by Friedrich Mohs to determine the relative hardness of minerals and other objects. The scale assigns numbers 1-10 to specific minerals, softest to hardest, using a scratch test.

Mother of Pearl: The iridescent lining of an oyster's shell. Often used as a nucleus for a man-made pearl.

Natural pearls: Pearls formed by an irritant without surgical implementation.

Nacre: Pronounced nay-ker. The crystalline substance secreted by an oyster to form a pearl. The microscopic crystals of nacre refract light to produce a pearl's color and luster.

Nucleus: The object which is artificially inserted into a pearl's mollusk during the cultivation process. This becomes the center of a finished pearl.

Overtone: A hint of a secondary color (see body color): pinkish, silverish, or bluish.

Orient: The rainbow effect that seems to encircle a pearl's surface.

Pavilion: A diamond's bottom portion.

Point: One hundredth of a carat.

Polish: The external finish of a stone, which ranges from excellent to poor.

Ring Setting: Collective term for the shank and the head of the ring before the center stone has been set. .

Roundness: Scale distinguishing between various degrees of roundness in pearls. Classifications include: all-round, mostly-round, slightly off-round and off-round.

Shank: The part of the ring that encircles the finger. Strictly speaking, the shank of the ring does not include the head.

Side Stone: A stone set alongside or encircling a center stone.

Solitaire: A single diamond set in a ring.

South Sea Pearls: Large pearls created by tropical oysters. Grown in Australia, Myanmar, Indonesia and the Phillipines.

Sparkle: The amount of reflected light that radiates from a diamond and combines both fire and brilliance.

Spherical: Having a round, globular shape.

Symmetry: The overall unity and proportion of a stone's cut. Symmetry ranges from poor to excellent.

Table: The largest facet on the top of the diamond.

Table %: The total diameter of the diamond's table in direct proportion to its overall width. A table which is too small or too large will negatively affect its brilliance and dispersion

Tahitian Pearls: Pearls grown mostly in French Polynesia. Well known for their beautiful colors, ranging anywhere from silverish-gray to purplish-black.

Thickness: The measurement, in millimeters, that indicates the width of a band or shank.

Uniformity: The grading system used to denote how well pearls in a piece of jewelry match one another. Uniformity can be excellent, good, or fair.