Know exactly what you are buying
300 pearl and jewellery terms, each one linked to a piece you can hold.
Where would you like to begin?
Types of Pearl
Freshwater, saltwater, South Sea, keshi, and how to tell a real pearl from a coated bead.
Shapes
Round, baroque, drop, coin and the rest, and what each one is worth paying for.
Quality & Grading
What AAA actually means, plus lustre, nacre, orient and the claims to be sceptical of.
Size & Length
Millimetres, choker to rope, bangle sizing, and which length suits which neckline.
Jewellery Styles
Jhumka, mangalsutra, kundan, polki, temple work and the rest of the Indian vocabulary.
Gold & Hallmarking
Karat versus carat, 22K and 18K, 916, plating, vermeil and what a BIS hallmark proves.
Gemstones & Cuts
Ruby, emerald, sapphire and zircon, their Indian names, and the cuts from princess to cabochon.
Metals & Plating
925 silver, platinum, brass and the alloys and finishes a piece is actually built from.
Clasps & Construction
Clasps, knotting, drilling and settings, the parts that decide whether a piece survives.
Care & Authenticity
Storing pearls, the tooth test, restringing, and the astrological terms buyers ask about.
Buying & Value
Making charges, wastage, gold rate, GST, buyback and what a piece is actually worth.
Every term
193–216 of 300
Oval Cut
An elongated brilliant. Nearly the sparkle of a round, and it looks larger for the same weight.
Overtone
A translucent secondary colour lying over a pearl's main body colour, most often rose, silver or green.
Oxidised Silver
Silver deliberately darkened to bring out detail. In Indian markets the term is also used loosely for base-metal tribal jewellery.
Pachi
A kundan variant where stones are set into a lac-filled frame, giving a slightly raised, textured surface.
Palakka
A Kerala necklace of leaf-shaped green stone pendants set in gold. Palakka means small leaf.
Panchdhatu
An alloy of five metals, traditionally gold, silver, copper, zinc and iron, used for astrological rings.
Parcel
A quantity of loose stones sold together, folded into a paper, priced as a group rather than individually.
Passa
A fan-shaped head ornament worn at the side of the head, above the ear. Also called a jhoomar.
Paua Pearl
A rare blue-green pearl from the New Zealand paua, an abalone. Almost always a cultured half-pearl rather than a whole one.
Pave Setting
Many tiny stones set close together with minimal metal showing, so the surface reads as continuous sparkle.
Peacock
A dark pearl showing green, blue and rose flashes over a near-black body. The most prized colour effect in dark pearls.
35 in stock · from ₹400
Pear
A drop with a more pronounced shoulder, wider at the base and distinctly narrow at the top.
3 in stock · from ₹23,920
Pear Cut
A teardrop outline, round at one end and pointed at the other. The classic pendant and drop-earring shape.
Pearl Care
Pearls are soft and porous. They need to go on last, come off first, and be stored apart from everything else.
Pearl Farming
Growing pearls deliberately: nucleating molluscs, tending them in water for months or years, then harvesting.
Pearl Grading
The A to AAA scale used to rate a pearl on lustre, surface, shape, colour matching and nacre. There is no global standards body enforcing it.
91 in stock · from ₹18,000
Pearl Restoration
Lightly polishing away a damaged outer nacre layer to reveal fresh nacre beneath. Only possible on thick-nacre pearls.
Pearl Sac
The pocket of tissue that forms around an implant inside a mollusc and secretes nacre onto it.
Pearl Size
The diameter of a pearl in millimetres, measured across its widest point. Price rises steeply, not evenly, with size.
73 in stock · from ₹3,300
Pearl Watch
A wristwatch strung on rows of pearls instead of a metal or leather strap.
8 in stock · from ₹6,300
Pearls for Men
Pearl jewellery cut for men: single-strand chains, bracelets, studs and rings, usually in larger pearls and darker tones.
Peeling
Nacre lifting or flaking away from a pearl, exposing the bead beneath. Terminal, and caused by thin nacre or chemical damage.
Pendant
A single ornament hung from a chain or strand, worn as the focal point of a necklace.
35 in stock · from ₹1,200
Per Gram Pricing
Pricing a piece on what it weighs, at the day's rate for its purity, plus labour. The traditional gold model.