This is not an endorsement. The information on this page is provided by GIA as a nonprofit service. It's bright, fiery, symmetrical, and sparkles with light. The three major parts of a polished diamond, top to bottom, are the crown, the girdle, and the pavilion.
Some polished diamonds have a very tiny flat facet at the bottom of the pavilion, called the culet.
The large flat facet on the top of a polished diamond is called the table. The distance from the bottom of the girdle to the culet is the pavilion depth. A pavilion depth that's too shallow or too deep will allow light to escape from the side of the stone, or leak out of the bottom. A well-cut diamond will direct more light through the crown. Cutting a diamond to produce the maximum return of light depends on the interrelationship between three critical proportions - table size, crown angle and pavilion depth.