Glossary - M
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- Make
- The proportions to which a diamond has been cut. An Ideal, Very Good, or Good make will have proportions that maximize the brilliance and fire of a diamond. A poor cut will result in a diamond that has little sparkle and cannot properly reflect light because of the way it was cut.
- Mantle
- Soft tissue inside an oyster. A cultured pearl is formed when a surgically-inserted nucleus is coated with nacre by the oyster inside the mantle.
- Marquise-Cut Diamond
- An elongated diamond shape with two pointy ends. The length of the marquise helps makes fingers appear long and slender.
- Matching
- A description of how well individual pearls in a piece of jewelry match one another. Also called uniformity, it can be Excellent, Good, or Fair.
- Matinee Length
- A pearl necklace 24 inches long.
- Milgrain Edge
- A design consisting of very small, repeated ridges.
- Millimeter
- The metric unit of measure equal to about 0.04 inch. For reference, a US 5-cent coin is just under 2mm thick.
- Mohs Hardness Scale
- A scale developed by Friedrich Mohs to determine the relative hardness of minerals and other objects. The scale assigns the numbers 1 to 10 to specific minerals, softest to hardest respectively, using a scratch test. For reference, the average fingernail has a Mohs hardness of about 2.5, while the average knife rates a hardness of 5.5. Diamonds rate a 10.
- Mother-of-pearl
- The iridescent lining of an oyster shell, often inset in jewelry
