Jewellery or jewelry ( /ˈdʒuːəlᵊri/) is a form of personal adornment, such as brooches, rings, necklaces, earrings, and bracelets.
With some exceptions, such as medical alert bracelets or military dog tags, jewellery normally differs from other items of personal adornment in that it has no other purpose than to look appealing, but humans have been producing and wearing it for a long time – with 100,000-year-old beads made from Nassarius shells thought to be the oldest known jewellery.
Jewellery may be made from a wide range of materials, but gemstones, precious metals, beads and shells have been widely used. Depending on the culture and times jewellery may be appreciated as a status symbol, for its material properties, its patterns, or for meaningful symbols. Jewellery has been made to adorn nearly every body part, from hairpins to toe rings.
The word jewellery itself is derived from the word jewel, which was anglicized from the Old French "jouel", and beyond that, to the Latin word "jocale", meaning plaything. In British English the spelling can be written as jewelery or jewellery, while in U.S. English the spelling is jewelry.
Read more about Jewelry: Form and Function, Materials and Methods, Impact On Society, History, Modern, Body Modification, Jewellery Market
Famous quotes containing the word jewelry:
“The demonstrations are always early in the morning, at six o’clock. It’s wonderful, because I’m not doing anything at six anyway, so why not demonstrate?... When you’ve written to your president, to your congressman, to your senator and nothing, nothing has come of it, you take to the streets.”
—Erica Bouza, U.S. jewelry designer and social activist. As quoted in The Great Divide, book 2, section 7, by Studs Terkel (1988)