The word “pottery” is variously used. Its root is the Latin _potum_, a drinking-vessel. It is applied, according to general English usage, to all wares distinguished by their opacity from translucent porcelain. The French word _poterie_, on the other hand, is applied to all vessels, including those made of porcelain. The latter fact has led to a slight confusion in the use of the English word. One writer makes the assertion in one place, that the words “earthen-ware” and “pottery” have limited and distinctive meanings, the former applying only to vessels of the coarser qualities, the latter to the finest products of the fictile art, “including even porcelain.” In another place, he draws a distinction between pottery and porcelain, and in the latter course he is followed by the present writer. Faience, fayence, or fayance, is a French word applied to every kind of glazed earthen-ware. According to the earlier French usage, the term included porcelain, but more lately it has been applied only to pottery. The word “majolica,” as now employed, has almost the same meaning as faience. A more limited signification is attached to it by some. The writer of the article on pottery in “Appleton’s Cyclopædia” says it is used “to signify all faience of Italian manufacture. Lately the word has been used as almost, if not quite, synonymous with faience.” A more recent writer has said, “In its now common acceptation, the word is applied to all kinds of decorated pottery made in Italy, or made in colors and styles imitating the old Italian work. But when you read a book on pottery written during the present century by an expert, you will do well to remember that the word in that book means exclusively Italian decorated pottery of the fifteenth, sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries, in the old Italian styles. It does not include Italian vases made in imitation of German, French, Dutch, or English wares.”