How did the word rhinestone originate?
The rhinestone, as every girl knows, is an imitation diamond. It first was given a name of its own in Paris, the city of stylish women. The French name for the speck of glassy glitter is caillou du Rhin. Caillou means a flint or pebb1e, and du Rhin means of the rhine river. Our word rhinestone, stone of the river rhine, is a translation of the French name for the popular imitation diamond. The glassy fragment, however, is not mined near the rhine or anywhere e1se. It is a man made substance of glassy paste or glass. The ingredients include quartz and potassium carbonate, borax, red lead and white arsenic.
