Alloy
A mixture of two or more compatible metals, made by being fused into each other to form a homogenous mass. The resultant new metal is usually harder, more durable, and more fusible then the components, but less malleable and of a different color. Alloys made of various metals and in various proportions to meet different industrial needs are made by refiners and are sold to makers of jewellery.

Annealing
The process of heating and then cooling metal to make it softer and thus, easier to work with. The required temperature of annealing, the duration of healing and the rate of cooling vary according to the metals used.

Art Deco
A decorative style that originated in France in 1920’s and 1930’s in protest against the Art Nouveau style and later art movements, and that was popularized in United States, scorned by many in its early period, it required some popularity in the 1960’s and 1970’s.the style emphasized abstract designs and geometric patterns.

Art Nouveau
The style of decoration prevalent in the 1890’s and early 1900’s., the name being derived from a gallery for the interior decoration, called ‘Maison de l`art Nouveau’. The style featured free-flowing, curving lines with asymmetrical natural motifs, such as intertwining floral patterns, butterflies, dragon flies, female faces etc.

Brilliant Cut
The style of cutting a diamond or other transparent gemstones as a brilliant in a prescribed manner with many facets of different shapes and sizes so as to increase its brilliance by minimizing the amount of the light that escape at the bottom of the stone.

Cabochon
A stone cut with a smooth rounded surface, with no facets, and highly polished. Usually it is cut from an opaque or translucent stone, or a stone with special optical effects such as opal and moonstone, Cabochons are of various shapes, usually round or oval, and sometimes rectangular or triangular.

Cameo
A gemstone having a design cut in low relief. Originally it was a gemstone having layers of different colors carve to show in low relief, the design and the background in contrasting colors.

Carat
The unit weight for a diamond, other gemstone and a pearl. Formerly it had various values, but now has been standardized as being equal to 1/5th of a gram.

Carving
A process of decorating metal or a gemstone by cutting into it to produce an artistic pattern.

Chasing
The technique of decorating by handwork the front surface of a metal ware, by intending it and so raising the design, without cutting into it. Using a chasing tool and a chasing hammer. It is done either to enhance the respousse work or by sharpening the relief decoration, or as an independent decoration by beating down the metal to form a relief pattern.

Clasp
A type of fastener made of two parts, usually a hook on one piece and a slot on the other. It is used to fasten a griddle or a belt, and smaller ones to fasten a bracelet or necklace, the parts being attached to opposite ends of the piece to be joined.

Collet
A circular band of metal in which a gemstone is set.

Costume jewellery
Various articles of moderate priced to in expensive jewellery, originally pieces suitable for a particular type of costume. But now they are applied to two classes of jewellery. The first being the gem-set imitations, which resemble precious jewellery but are made usually of silver and set with substitutes of gemstones. The second being articles made of some base and imitation of gemstones, being intended as a novelty and to meet an ephemeral fashion trend.

Crown
The upper part of a cut gemstone, which usually protrudes above the setting.

Embossing
A technique of producing relief decoration by raising the surface of thin metal from the reverse to from the design. The process is usually applied to flat metal, but it is sometimes used to decorate hollow ware by means of a snarling iron that impress the design from the interior.

Enamel
A pigment of vitreous nature composed usually of powdered potash and silica, bound with oil, colored with metallic oxides, and applied to porcelain, gold, silver, copper, glass etc., as a surface decoration by low temperature firing.

Enamelling
The technique of decorating various materials by the use of enamel e.g. porcelain, gold, silver, copper, porcelain glass etc, but as to jewellery, only gold, silver and copper surface to paint scenes, figures or inscriptions or in grooves or depressions in metal by filling in certain areas.

Engraved gemstone
A gemstone decorated with carved or engraved design, monogram, portrait, or inscription, incised as an Intaglio or in relief as a Cameo.

Engraving
The technique of decorating the surface of a hard material from front by cutting away some part of the surface, using a sharply pointed steel tool, called the graver. Lines, characters, patterns, portraits etc. are often engraved in the metal surface. When the decoration on a gemstone is so made, it is called an Intaglio.

Etching
The technique of decorating the surface by controlled corrosion using an acid is called etching. The usual process is to cover the design on surface with an acid-resisting substance and then to immerse the piece in acid that eats away the uncovered portion. Fro decoration of line lines, the entire piece is covered with acid-resisting substance and the design is scratched through it with a sharp tool. The piece is then immersed in the acid. The covering is often a type of wax or varnish, and the usual acids for metalwork are nitric acid for silver and cooper, and aqua regia for gold and platinum.

Facets
Small, plane surfaces of cut diamonds or other transparent gemstones. Such facets are of various shapes and sizes, and the many arrangements of the facets depend on the style of cutting the stone.

Faceting
The process of cutting a diamond or other transparent gemstone so as to have its surface completely covered with facets. The facets, if properly shaped and placed, result in greater brilliance of the stone.

Filigree
A type of decoration on metal were made by use of fine wire, plain twisted or plaited. The wire is usually of gold and silver, and is used to form delicate and intricate designs. There are two styles of filigree. In the first style, the wire is affixed by soldering it to a metal base. In the second style, the wire is used without a metal foundation, thus forming an openwork design. False filigree is an imitation formed by punching wires into the back of metal sheet or by casting from a true-filigree-original.

Flaw
An internal fault or imperfection in a gemstone, as distinguished from a blemish, which is marring of the surface. Flaws may be due to the inclusion of a foreign material, to a small crack or cleavage, or to a liquid filled cavity. A flaw usually detracts from the value of a gemstone, especially in a diamond. A stone is said to be clean or flawless if no flaws are noticeable under a jeweler’s lens that magnifies ten times. Some flaws can be concealed by the manner in which the stone is set.

Findings
As to jewellery, these are small metal parts used as components in the making or repairing of various articles by jewelers. These are brought readymade from the refiners.

Foil
A thin sheet of metal, used in jewellery as backing to certain mounted gemstones to enhance their color or brilliance. Foil is made by hammering the sheet metal to thinness of paper, and is applied by beating it to a metal object or by means of a fixative.

Foiling
The process of changing the apparent color or appearance of certain gemstones by backing with foil.

Forging
The process of hammering metal to change its shape.

Girdle
The edge of a gemstone to which any setting is attached. sometimes, it is also called the setting edge.

Glass jewellery
Various ornaments for personal adornment that have been made of, or decorated with glass. For example, beads, bangles, finger rings, brooches, pendants and necklaces.

Gold nugget
A lump of native gold in the form of water-worn mass washed from the rock-bed and deposited in a river or stream, usually weighing from 20 grams to 50 kilograms. Sometimes small nuggets are mounted as decoration on some jewellery article.

Granite jewellery
Articles of jewellery made by pieces of pink or grey granite rock, cut into cylinders and prisms capped with silver or gold, usually joined to form a bracelet. These piece were used in Scotland during the Victorian era.

Granulated gold
Gold used as decoration on the surface of jewellery by affixing the gold in minute grains to the metal base, sometimes massed in an area of the piece or sometimes placed in linear or outline decoration. Pouring into water molten gold, which then forms drop-like granules. The process of gold granulation was used from the 3rd millennium BC by the goldsmiths of eastern Mediterranean region. The gold granules were made separately and soldered.

Grinding
The technique of cutting a diamond or any other transparent gemstone so as to give it its final shape and the desired facets. It is done by making flat surfaces by means of the abrasive action of a rotating wheel, charged with diamond powder.

Hallmark
The marks stamped on some articles of gold or silver to attest the purity of metal, in compliance with legally established standards and other relevant data. A hallmark on gold jewellery artifacts in India will comprise five compulsory symbols which are BIS mark, fineness, assaying and hall marking centre mark, year of marking and makers mark.

Hammering
A process used in making gold jewellery by which the metal is beaten to stretch it, in order to produce sheet metal, to make flat discs of plaques, and sometimes to alter the flat parts of some cast pieces.

Heat Treatment
The process of changing or eliminating the color of a natural gemstone or a synthetic gemstone by the application of controlled heat.

Imitation gemstone
An artificial stone that is man-made to imitate, often by its color, the appearance of a natural gemstone. But an artificial stone has completely different physical characteristics as well a chemical composition and thus, can be differentiated from a natural gemstone.

Inscription
Words inscribed on some articles of jewellery to record information about the circumstances in which the piece was made or used, or to set forth some relevant motto.

Intaglio
A style of decoration created by engraving or carving below the surface so that the apparent elevations of the design are hollowed out and an impression from the design yields an image in relief. The background is not cutaway, but is left in the plane of the highest areas of the design. It is the opposite of a cameo, and sometimes referred to as ‘hollow relief’

Junk jewellery
A very recent extension of the term ‘Costume jewellery’ . that embraces articles made of great variety of materials, including plastic, glass, base metal, feathers etc. it consists of a wide assortment of articles of personal adornment, often of highly original and unusual patterns; but of inferior quality, short life, and cheap production.

Karat
A measure of fineness of gold or gold alloy. The number of karats is the number of parts by weight of pure gold in 24 parts pf the metal. 14 Karat Gold is therefore, described as 14 parts of pure gold in 24 parts of the alloty.

Leaf
A very thin sheet of metal, usually 0.005 mm thick, thinner than foil. Hammering a metal sheet placed between plates of copper or sheets of parchment makes it.

Mark
Generally, the identifying marks of the marker of an article of jewellery.

Mounting
The metal part of a jewellery piece before the stones are set in to it.

Miniature jewellery
Tiny articles in the form of normal pieces of jewellery made in extremely small size to be placed on mannequin dolls to display fashions. Such pieces are distinct from some jewellery specially made in small size for use by children.

Navratna
A type of Indian jewel decorated with nine different varieties of gemstones, sometimes in the form of a necklace, pendant, bracelet or armlet. Such pieces were formerly regarded as amulets. The nine gemstones include emerald, diamond, pearl, yellow sapphire, ruby, coral, cat’s eye, blue sapphire and Zircon.

Pavilion
The part of a brilliant below the Gridle. It is sometimes also called the base.

Pickle
A bath of nitric acid or sulphuric acid, or a mixture of both, diluted with water. It is used by jewelers to remove from metal any oxides and flux remaining after soldering, and also for cleaning jewellery. For gold, silver and copper, sulphuric acid is used with water in the ratio of 1:10.

Polishing
For metals, polishing refers to the process of making metal smooth and glossy, after the piece has been fashioned and rubbed with any of the various abrasives to give it a preliminary finishing. For gemstones, polishing is done on a rotating wheel charged with various abrasive powders.

Repousse
The process of raising a design in sheet metal by punching up the reverse side by the use of punches and hammer. Repousse is than finished from the front by chasing.

Parure
A set of jewellery ornaments made of variety of gemstones and intended to be worn at the same time such as a necklace, bracelets, brooch and earrings. Such assembles of jewellery were popular in the second half of the 16th century and were revived in the 19th century. They were made with diamonds for formal wear and other gem stones for day time wear.

Rough
The description given to a diamond or any other gemstone, found before being cut.

Skin
The natural surface of an uncut and unpolished diamond. For pearls, it is the exterior layer of the nacreous matter of which a pearl is composed. On a pearl of quality, it should be flawless.

Refining
The process of removing impurities from a precious metal.

Shank
The part of a ring that encircles the finger and is attached to the stone settings.

Solder
A metal or metallic alloy used to join metals. Solder is designed to melt at a lower temperature than the metal to be joined. The terms easy, medium, and hard solders are used to describe solders with progressively higher melting points. Normally, hard solder is first used on a piece since it melts at the higher temperature. Medium and then easy solders are used afterwards. This technique permits the jeweler to solder a piece together without melting previously made joints.

Soldering
The process of fusing two pieces of metal together with solder.

Solitaire
A single gemstone, usually a diamond, or sometimes a symmetrical pearl, set alone as the sole ornament for a piece of jewellery. the piece is usually a finger ring, and sometimes a pendant.

Stamping
The process of making a complete relief pattern on metal by forcing, by blow of hammer, a punch with the desired pattern in relief into a metal sheet placed over a corresponding depressed mould, or vice versa. The pattern is formed in single blow and the process is suitable for mass production.

Synthetic gemstones
An artificial, man made stone used in the same manner as a natural gemstone, having the same appearance, chemical composition and physical characteristics including crystalline structure, specific gravity, refractive index, color dispersion, and hardness.

Table
The large flat surface or central facet on top of crown of a diamond or any other transparent gemstone, the side surfaces of which are cut at angles depending on whether the table is square, octagonal, oblong etc. if larger then normal, it is called an open table.