In the British-American tradition, an engagement ring is a ring worn by a woman on her left-hand ring finger indicating her engagement to be married. By modern convention, the ring is usually presented as a betrothal gift by a man to his prospective bride while or directly after she accepts his marriage proposal. It represents a formal agreement to chastity and a future marriage.

Similar traditions seem to date at least to the ancient Greeks, Romans, and Egyptians. In Rome it was believed that the "vein of love" was located on the fourth finger of the left hand.

In the United States today, it is becoming more common that a woman will also buy an engagement or promise ring for her partner at the time of the engagement.

In Brazil and Germany, both the man and the woman wear engagement rings.

In some societies, it is traditional for the engagement ring to cost the equivalent of one month's pay of the man's wages. In the United States, de Beers and some jewelry merchants have promoted a general guideline of two or three months' pay. A spokesperson from Tiffany’s Australia, quoted on the television program A Current Affair (February 1, 2005), suggested that a man should spend two to three month's salary on an engagement ring.

The inception of the engagement ring itself can be tied to the Fourth Lateran Council presided over by Pope Innocent III in 1215. Innocent declared a longer waiting period between betrothal and marriage; plain gold rings, silver rings or iron rings were used earliest. Gems were more than baubles; they were important and reassuring status symbols to the aristocracy. Laws were passed to preserve a visible division of social rank, ensuring only the privileged wore florid jewels. As time passed and laws relaxed, diamonds and other gems became obtainable to the middle class.

At one time, engagement rings mounted sets of precious gemstones. One traditional sentimental pattern mounted six precious gemstones to celebrate the joining of two families: The birthstones of the bride's parents and the bride (on the left), and the birth stones of the groom and his parents (on the right). The parents' stones were mounted with the mother to the left of the father. The bride and groom's birthstones would be adjacent in the center. Another similar pattern, for four gemstones, mounted the birthstone of the parents' marriages, and the birthstones of the bride and groom. These token rings often disassembled, to expose a channel in which a lock of the suitor's hair could be treasured.

Others believe the engagement ring goes back to the time of the Egyptians. Why wear the ring on the third finger of the left hand? The ancient Egyptians believed that the vein in that finger ran directly to the heart. As for that big rock of an engagement ring, the first recorded diamond engagement ring was presented by the Archduke Maximillian of Austria to Mary of Burgundy as a betrothal gift in 1477. However, the diamond engagement ring did not become the standard it is considered today until after an extensive marketting campaign by De Beers in the middle of the 20th century.

A Victorian tradition was the Regards ring, in which the initials of the precious gems used spelled out the word 'regards'.
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