What are differences between bangles and bracelets?
Sometimes people consider tiffany bracelets as tiffany bangles. What are differences between bangles and bracelets?
For me the difference is that a bangle is usually a stiff circular bracelet, often people wear more than one on their wrist. It can be silver or gold, but equally it can be made of plastic or wood or cheaper metals. A bracelet is perhaps a more general term for jewelry worn on the arm.
The terms “bangle” and “bracelet” have different etymologies. Bangle is from the Hindi bangri which means ring shaped bracelet or anklet. The word “bracelet” is from Middle French brachialle meaning armlet.
Possessing different linguistic roots, both words approximate different regional conceptions of the adornments in question.
The bracelet appears to have the more generic of the two definitions, encompassing anything which may be worn on the arm - though more commonly on the wrist.Bangle, on the other hand, has more of a fixed form: It is ring-shaped.
The most important distinction that we may solicit, therefore, is that the bangle must be ring-shaped (i.e., always circular, always solid) whereas the bracelet can be flexible.
But more than this, the bangle implies a musicality that is not a feature of the bracelet. Multiple bangles may be worn in Hindu culture - or in Western variations - where the bangles hit against one another producing a pleasant percussive sound. This may explain the onomatopoeic quality of the word “bangle”. The fact that bangles are inherently solid dictates that they must be made from a finite range of firm materials. As such we find wooden bangles, silver bangles and gold bangles.
Conversely, this is why we find bracelets made with a more diverse range of materials. We can have leather bracelets, hemp bracelets or cotton bracelets, as well as silver bracelets and gold.