Design Nomenclature / Form & Geometry
Vertex
Also called vert, point
A point in space, stored as coordinates, where edges meet. It is a mesh's only positional data — edges and faces are references to vertices, not geometry in their own right. A vertex may also carry a normal, a colour, a UV coordinate, and skin weights, which is why one visible corner sometimes needs several coincident vertices.
In practice
'Verts' in a count discussion. Splitting a vertex so it can hold two normals or two UVs is invisible in the viewport and doubles the count at export — the reason authored and exported numbers disagree.