A brooch is a piece of jewellery you pin onto your clothes, usually near the neck or on a jacket or dress. Most of the time it is women who wear one, though actually men wear them too — on a coat, or with some kinds of traditional dress. It is not a necklace and it is not a ring. It sits on the cloth and holds on with a pin at the back. Some brooches are small and pretty for every day; some are big and you wear them for a special day. The word is an old variant of broach, which once named a pointed pin; the jewellery spelling went one way, and broach kept other jobs in the language (a tool, or “to raise a subject”).