The fruit of the carob seed was used by the ancient Greeks as the unit of measurement for weighing gems and precious stones due to the uniformity of weight attributed to him.
Carob keration was called in Greek, so that this word was also used as a unit of weight of the gems. A keration equivalent to the weight of a seed.
When the Arabs adopted the unit of weight, his name became quirat, which later became English carat.
currently has two denotations carat different carat jeweler and goldsmith.
The first is a unit of mass equal to 1 / 140 of an ounce, which represents about two-tenths of a gram.
Instead, the jeweler karat, which expresses the amount of material contained in a precious alloy, equivalent to 1 / 24 of total or material, which is the same, a 4.167%.
Thus, a piece consists of twenty-four carat gold, while an eighteen-carat has a purity of 75%.
This word has its equivalent in Portuguese as carat, in English and French, as carat, in Italian, Carat, and German, Karat.
In our language, carat is also used, usually in the plural to refer to the value or importance of some intangible quality, as in the text of the Mexican writer Gilberto Chavez Jr.
"... without daring me to consummate irremediable act, which, to some extent, rising over and perhaps call into question my male carats. "
(Word of the Day)
