Several experimental results of a research on ceramics as cutting tools are described in this paper. Mechanical properties, grinding pocedures, cutting characteristics and tool life of ceramics are discussed comparing with those for carbide tools. These results showed that ceramic tools used in this study was inferior a little in hardness, sharpness of cutting edges by grinding and resistance of flank wear to those for carbides, owing to less ductility. On the other hand, it was shown that ceramics had excellent features in cutting characteristics, that is, larger shear angle and less tool-chip contact length, and showed good cratering resistance. Improvement in ductility is mostly desired for increasing usefulness of ceramic tools.