Q: What does "carat" mean, and how much does one actually weigh?
A: The word "Carat" comes from the Greek name for the carob seed, which was first used in ancient times as a measure of weight. A carat weighs seven-thousandths of an ounce; so about 142 of them are needed to make a single ounce. The carat is divided into 100 points, so that when a woman says her diamond is a quarter of a carat, for example, she means it is 25 points.
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