Glossary

Our Bead Glossary Will Help You Recognize All of Your Beads.

This page is a free ecommerce glossary that has explanations for the bead terms you may encounter as you shop.

This glossary has common words and definitions such as a Carnelian Bead definition. Below are basic definitions for the frequently-used bead terms:

Agate Beads - fine-grained variegated chalcedony having its colors arranged in stripes, blended in clouds, or showing mosslike forms.

Amethyst Beads - purple or violet forms of transparent quartz used as gemstones or beads.

Amazonite Beads - apple-green or bluish-green microcline beads.

Apatite Beads - calcium phosphate fluoride beads.

Aquamarine Beads - transparent blue-green variety of beryl, used as gemstones or beads.

Aventurine Beads -glass containing opaque sparkling particles of foreign material usually copper or chromic oxide.

Carnelian Beads - pale to deep red or reddish-brown variety of clear chalcedony, used in jewelry.

Chalcedony Beads - translucent quartz that are commonly pale blue or gray with nearly waxlike luster.

Chrysoprase Beads - apple-green chalcedony used as gemstones or beads.

Coral Beads - red-orange, pinkish, or white deposits secreted by corals of the genus Corallium, used to make jewelry and beads.

Fluorite Beads - minerals, essentially CaF2 that are often fluorescent in ultraviolet light and occurs in light green, blue, yellow, brown, and colorless forms.

Garnet Beads - brittle and more or less transparent usually red silicate mineral that has a vitreous luster, occurs mainly in crystals but also in massive form and in grains, found commonly in gneiss and mica schist, and are used as a semiprecious beads.

Jade Beads - rich green, soft celery green or deep sage and are opaque or milky in appearance.

Jasper Beads - opaque cryptocrystalline varieties of quartz that may be red, yellow, or brown.

Kyanite Beads - bladed triclinic crystals and crystalline aggregates with a dark blue enamel, lapis lazuliand that is used as gemstones and beads.

Labradorite Stones - varieties of plagioclase feldspar found in igneous rocks and characterized by brilliant colors in some specimens.

Lapis Beads - semiprecious stones that are usually rich azure blue and are essentially complex silicate often with spangles of iron pyrites.

Marcasite Beads - crystallized iron pyrites.

Moonstone Beads - transparent or translucent feldspar of pearly or opaline luster used as beads.

Mother of Pearl Beads - hard pearly iridescent substance forming the inner layer of a mollusk shell.

Onyx Beads - chalcedony that occurs in bands of different colors and is used as gemstones or beads, especially in cameos and intaglios.

Opal Beads - minerals that are hydrated amorphous silica softer and less dense than quartz and typically with definite and often marked iridescent play of colors.

Pearls - dense variously colored and usually lustrous concretion formed of concentric layers of nacre as an abnormal growth within the shell of some mollusks and used as gems or beads

Peridot Beads - deep yellowish green transparent olivine used as beads.

Quartz Beads - minerals consisting of silicon dioxide occurring in colorless and transparent or colored hexagonal crystals or in crystalline masses.

Sodalite Beads - transparent to translucent minerals that consist of a silicate of sodium and aluminum with some chlorine, have a vitreous or greasy luster, and are found in various igneous rocks.

Turquoise Beads - minerals that are blue, bluish green, or greenish gray hydrous basic phosphate of copper and aluminum, take a high polish, and are valued as gems when skyblue.

Tourmaline Beads - mineral of variable color that consists of a complex borosilicate and makes striking beads when transparent and cut.