As with all precious stones, the weight - and therefore the size - of a diamond is expressed in carats. The word carat originated in a natural unit of weight: the seeds of the carob tree. Diamonds were traditionally weighed against these seeds until the system was standardized and one carat was fixed at 0.2 grams (one fifth of a gram).
One carat is divided into 100 "points" so that a diamond 25 points is described as a quarter of a carat or 0.25 carats.
Size is the most obvious factor in determining the value of a diamond, but now you know that two diamonds of equal size can have very unequal prices depending on their quality.
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