Word.ws English Dictionary

niello

UK/niˈɛləʊ/US/niˈɛloʊ/

niello noun: any of various black metal alloys, made of sulphur with copper, silver or lead, used to create decorative designs on other metals.

niello: any of various black metal alloys, made of sulphur with copper, silver or lead, used to create...
Image: Athanasius Stepanovich Popov (Jeweler), Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

niello (countable and uncountable, plural niellos or nielli)

  1. Any of various black metal alloys, made of sulphur with copper, silver or lead, used to create decorative designs on other metals.
    • a young woman named Renata, with a gesturing of her dark curls, beckoned him in with a cigarette-case of Russian silver and niello, which sprang open to reveal a collection of “smokes” […]2006, Thomas Pynchon, Against the Day, Vintage, published 2007, page 283
  2. An impression on paper taken from the engraved or incised surface before the niello alloy has been inlaid.

Verb

niello (third-person singular simple present niellos, present participle nielloing, simple past and past participle nielloed)

  1. (transitive) To decorate (a surface) using this technique.

niello meaning in Urdu and Arabic

niello in Urdu

سیاہ مینا کاری

niello in Arabic

any of various black metal alloys
فِضَّة مُحْرَقَة fiḍḍa muḥraqa, مِينَا mīnā

Forms of niello

Noun
pluralniellos
pluralnielli
Verb
third-person singular presentniellos
present participlenielloing
past participlenielloed
pastnielloed

Origin of niello

Borrowed from Italian niello, from Latin nigellus (“blackish”).

Words formed from niello

Questions about niello

What does niello mean?
Niello means any of various black metal alloys, made of sulphur with copper, silver or lead, used to create decorative designs on other metals.
What is niello in Urdu?
Niello in Urdu is سیاہ مینا کاری. See Niello meaning in Urdu.
What part of speech is niello?
Niello can be a noun or a verb.
How do you pronounce niello?
Niello is pronounced /niˈɛləʊ/ (UK).
What is the plural of niello?
The plural of niello is niellos.

Words near niello in the dictionary

  1. nielle
  2. nielled
  3. nielli
  4. niellist
  5. niellists
  6. niello
  7. nielloed
  8. nielloing
  9. niellos
  10. nielloware
  11. niellowares

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: niello (page history and authors); niello (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “niello.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/niello. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.