Diamond Glossary

The knowledge and more information you have the better diamond purchase you will make. Here are a number of diamond terms that are used by jewelers to describe diamonds and which appear on diamond grading reports.

R:

Radiant Cut:
A type of brilliant cut fancy shape that resembles a square or rectangle with the corners cut off.

Ratio:
A comparison of how much longer a diamond is than it is wide. It is used to analyze the outline of fancy shapes only; it is never applied to round diamonds. There's really no such thing as an 'ideal' ratio; it's simply a matter of personal aesthetic preferences. For example, while many people are told that a 2 to 1 ratio is best for a marquise, most people actually tend to prefer a ratio of around 1.80 to 1 when they actually look at marquises. And though the standard accepted range for the length-to-width ratio of a marquise generally falls between 1.70 to 1 and 2.05 to 1, there are customers who insist on having 'fatter' marquises of about 1.60 to 1 and other customers who want longer, thinner marquises of 2.25 to 1.

Report:
refers to a diamond grading document detailing unique characteristics of a diamond.

Round Cut or Brilliant Cut:
The most common style of cutting for both diamonds and colored stones. The standard round brilliant consists of a total of 58 facets: 1 table, 8 bezel facets, 8 star facets and 16 upper-girdle facets on the crown; and 8 pavilion facets, 16 lower-girdle facets, and usually a culet on the pavilion, or base. Although the brilliant style was devised to give maximum brilliancy and fire, many stones cut in this fashion do not have ideal proportions or angles for that purpose. Modifications of the round brilliant include such fancy shapes as the marquise, half moon, pear shape and many others.

Rounding Up or Girdling:
The step in the fashioning process of a diamond in which the stone is given a circular shape. The stone is held in a lathe, or cutting machine, and another diamond, called a sharp, which is affixed to the end of a long dop that is supported by the hands and under an armpit, is brought to bear against the stone behind shaped. An older method consisted merely of rubbing two diamonds together until the desired shape was obtained.

Red Diamond:
The rarest of all fancy-colored diamonds. However, the term is often used to mean red-brown or rose-colored stones. Diamonds of an intense red color approaching that of ruby are excessively rare.

Refraction:
The bending of light rays. The deflection from a straight path suffered by a ray of light as it passes obliquely from a medium of one optical density to a medium of a different optical density, as from air into water or from air into a gemstone. The degree of bending is related to the change in velocity of light and the angel at which the light impinges.

Rose Cut:
An early style of cutting that is thought to have originated in India and to have been brought to Europe by the Venetians. In its most usual form, it has a flat, unfaceted base and a somewhat dome-shaped top that is covered with a varied number of triangular facets and terminates in a point. The rose cut is now used primarily on small diamonds.

Rough Girdle:
If a diamond is rounded up too quickly in the fashioning process, the surface of the girdle, instead of having the smoothness and waxy luster of a finely turned girdle, will be rough or granular. This condition may also be accompanied by numerous hair like fractures extending into the stone, in which case the term bearded (or fuzzy) girdle is applied.

Reflection:
The bouncing back of light when it strikes an external or internal facet on a polished diamond.

Rough:
(Stone or Diamond) Diamond of industrial or gem quality before it undergoes any manufacturing process.

Reflection:
The return of light that strikes the surface of stone.

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