Word of the Day

Today's Word of the Day is cairngorm. A cairngorm is a Scottish variety of smokey quartz, commonly found in Victorian tourist jewelry. As we know, Queen Victoria loved all things Scottish and popularized wearing plaid, kilts, bagpipe playing, and Scottish jewelry. The Cairngorms, or Blue Hills, formerly the Red Hills in Gaelic, are a mountain range near Braemar in Scotland, now a national park, but the stones used for jewelry come from the Cairngorm mountain in the Grampian range located in Banffshire. The stones grow on the granite running through the mountain. At one time, it could also be found as pebbles in the Avon river. The brown or smokey color, which can also appear yellow, is attributed to titanium. The stones can also appear black, and are then called morion.