Foil Back: a gemstone with foil or metal set behind it to enhance it and reflect more light.
Foliate: a leaf shape.
French Jet: shiny black glass made to imitate real jet.
Fruit Salad: moulded stones to imitate fruit in 20th century costume jewellery.
Gilding: a very thin layer of gold in stuck onto cheaper metal to imitate solid gold.
Guilloché: pattern engraved on metal and covered in translucent enamel.
Hair Jewellery: made from intricately woven hair to remember loved ones, popular in the mid 19th century.
Hallmark: a mark on metal objects to show the date, manufacturer and place of manufacture.
Inclusion: a flaw or foreign body inside a gemstone.
Intaglio: a design carved into a stone or gemstone.
Jelly Belly: usually clear Lucite or glass set into an animal shape to form the ‘belly’.
Jet: fossilized wood used for mourning jewellery in the 19th century.
Lariat: a long necklace which is knotted or looped.
Locket: a compartment which opens to hold a photo or lock of hair.
Lucite: clear resin invented in 1937.
Machine Stamping: decoration on metal cut by machine and not by hand.
Micromosaic: miniature mosaic on a piece of jewellery.
Millefiori: decoration made from the cross-section of fused glass canes.
Millegrain: jewellery setting made from beaded metalwork.
Mizpah: Hebrew for “God watch over you” and written on much Victorian jewellery.
Modernism: simple geometric designs popular in the mid 20th century.
Mourning Jewellery: jewellery to remember a deceased loved one often made from jet or containing hair or a picture popular in the Victorian period.
Murano Glass: glass made in the Murano district near Venice, Italy.
Parure: matching set of four or five pieces of jewellery.
Paste: a type of glass cut to imitate diamonds and precious stones.