CARAT • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Carat

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/kˈɛrət/ Listen

noun

Carat n.

The weight by which precious stones and pearls are weighed. Note: The carat equals three and one fifth grains Troy, and is divided into four grains, sometimes called carat grains. Diamonds and other precious stones are estimated by carats and fractions of carats, and pearls, usually, by carat grains.

A twenty-fourth part; a term used in estimating the proportionate fineness of gold. Note: A mass of metal is said to be so many carats fine, according to the number of twenty-fourths of pure gold which it contains; as, 22 carats fine (goldsmith's standard) = 22 parts of gold, 1 of copper, and 1 of silver.

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Etymology of 'Carat'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Carat" Quotes from Famous Books

... going to separate, "but they do say that he—sh! sh! hush; here she comes." Yet, when you come to wash your pan of dirt, and the lies have all been carried off down the flume, and you've got the color of the few particles of solid, eighteen-carat truth left, you'll find it's the Sultan who's smoking Turkish cigarettes; and that Mabel is trying cubebs for her catarrh; and that the cashier of the Teenth National belongs to a whist club in the suburbs and ...

— Old Gorgon Graham - More Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son • George Horace Lorimer

... of scientific jargon, a great deal of impudence, and much good luck. All these things together so impressed the people that as often as not they would cry, "Miraculous!" In short, although the woman's ignorance was quite twenty-three carat she passed ...

— The Original Fables of La Fontaine - Rendered into English Prose by Fredk. Colin Tilney • Jean de la Fontaine

... your merry humour, here's the note, How much your chain weighs to the utmost carat; The fineness of the gold, and chargeful fashion; Which doth amount to three odd ducats more Than I stand debted to this gentleman: I pray you, see him presently discharg'd, For he is bound to sea, and stays ...

— The Comedy of Errors • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]

... Leopold. "She is a diamond that ought to be dug up, cut, and set in eighteen carat gold. Excuse my apparently brutal language, but you get ...

— Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks - A Picture of New England Home Life • Charles Felton Pidgin

... that the eight finest of these specimens are now lying on the table before us, their mottled sides thickly crusted with arsenical pyrites and streaked through and through with veins and splashes of twenty-two-carat gold. Incredulity, when raised to its highest pitch, might perhaps discredit all written testimony, whether official or scientific; but we have as yet seen no case so confirmed that the sight of these extraordinary fragments did ...

— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 79, May, 1864 • Various

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