Yellow Idioms

Several words have become part of the language in being used in phrases. Last time we looked at ‘white’ and now look at ‘yellow’.

Yellow peril is used to refer to cowardice and first seen in 1856.

Yellow-bellied is, as above, used to refer to cowardice and first used in 1924. The term yellow-belly had earlier been used by sailors to refer to their colleagues who were of mixed race. Note, while this and the previous examples show the colour as representing cowardice, traditionally (and as late as the 18th century) yellow has been associated with jealousy/envy.

Yellow dog is seen by 1770, and refers to a mongrel pooch. Later, by 1881, it is used to refer to someone seen as contemptible.

Yellow fever is first described in 1748, today we are more likely to say ‘jaundiced’.

Yellow journalism is an American expression referring to sensational chauvinism in the media, first seen in 1898. This began as the press were for aggression against Spain, and representative of the image of the Yellow Kid, the main character in Richard Outcault’s comic strip Shantytown.

Yellow ribbon, is an American tradition where such is worn to show support for friends and loved ones fighting for their country. In began in 1979 with the US embassy hostage crisis in Iran. Despite the oft-told story of it being from the film She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, a John Wayne film from 1949, there is no evidence of it being used prior to this. Of course the one thing which comes to mind when mentioning yellow ribbons, is the song by Tony Orlando and Dawn from 1973. This tells of how the ribbon would be displayed to show a convict returning home after being released from prison that they forgave him or her. Only problem here is, the ribbon had been used to show such forgiveness since 1959 but until the early Seventies had always been white. Yellow was a fictional account first told in a newspaper in 1971, the following year dramatized on television.

Yellowcake is first described in 1950, it’s an oxide of uranium.

Yellowtail is a name attributed to a fish, first described in 1709.

Yellow streak is simply another way of describing cowardice, first seen in the New Orleans newspaper the Daily Picayune in 1892.

Yellow brick road is the route followed in order to fulfil your hopes and dreams. The question is what came first, the film or the idea. We can be sure it wasn’t Elton John’s single and album of the same name. Although it is uncertain just when the metaphor was first used, it is quite clear the film The Wizard of Oz based on the book by Frank L. Baum followed the use of the phrase to suggest the streets of America was where a fortune could be made for those who chose the right path. Probably beginning around the time of the gold rush, the Emerald City in the land of Oz represents the US dollar.

Just to confuse matters in Middle English the word ‘yellow’ referred to a closer to blue-grey or even grey – used specifically to refer to the colour of eyes or of frogs.

Homonyms, Etymologically Speaking: Y

Many words have two meanings, sometimes more, which are often very different. Such words have identical spelling and pronunciation, they are known as homonyms. Here I continue an A to Z list of such words and look at how that word came to have two different meanings.

Y is for y ..... well, once again it isn't for anything as there isn't a single homonym beginning with that letter. But I won’t let that stop me getting to the end of the alphabet and we’ll have some fun with etymologies of words beginning with Y and we will begin with....

Yellow is first seen in Old English geolu from Proto-Germanic gelwaz, both meaning 'yellow' and from Proto-Indo-European ghel 'to shine'. And I have it on good authority that all those squares above contain yellow in one of its many shades.

Yacht came to English from Dutch, where jacht meant 'fast pirate ship'. All these come from Proto-Germanic yago and Proto-Indo-European yek 'to chase, hunt'.

Yes comes from Old English gese 'so be it'; itself from Proto-Germanic sijai and Proto-Indo-European es 'to be'.

Synonym Etymologies X

Continuing the look at synonyms through the eyes of the etymologist, this time it is the letter X and xanth. For once I am unable to offer synonyms, hence I chose 'xanth' as it has several uses. Best known would be as a colour, where it comes from the Greek xanthos 'yellow'.

Dalla xantha is a butterfly native to Colombia.

Xantha is also a girl's name, one most often given to those with blonde hair.

Caladenia xantha is native to Western Australia and has the common name primrose spider orchid.

Xantha is the home planet of Kurrgo, a character in the Marvel Comics series featuring the Fantastic Four.

Falsilunatia xantha is a species of predatory sea snail.

Xantha was a Greek and Bulgarian diesel ship designed to carry livestock, but has subsequently been renamed Solyst and later Sea Maid.

Colourful Language

With the long hours of sunshine most of the United Kingdom has been experiencing this week, I was drawn to the infinite number of colours picked out by the sunlight. I have never been able to understand the modern need to use foodstuffs for the names of colours, especially biscuit – not all biscuits are the same colour.

Examine a colour chart from the local hardware outlet and it reads more like a menu. However there are still the original colours and surely those cannot have come from household items. Hence I turned my attention to the etymology of the more traditional colours.

Red – is a Germanic word, which can be traced back to a Proto-Indo-European root reudh ‘ruddy’. The theoretical original European tongue used this solely to refer to hair colour.

Orange – surprisingly not used for the colour until 1540, previously this referred to the fruit and, prior to that, the tree. Just where the fruit and tree got the name is uncertain.

Yellow – comes from the Proto-Germanic gelwaz and Proto-Indo-European ghel ‘to shine’, and used for bright metals, particularly gold.

Green – another which can be traced to a Proto-Indo-European root where ghre means literally ‘grow’ and used to refer to the colour of living plants.

Blue – came to our shores from Old French blo meaning ‘pale, pallid, wan’ even ‘light-coloured, blond, discoloured’. Here the Proto-Indo-European is bhel ‘to shine or flash’.

Indigo – never a part of the rainbow before the early seventeenth century, this comes from the Spanish indico or Portuguese endego and a reference to the blue dye from India.

Violet – predictably this was named from the flower, first used as a colour in the late fourteenth century, this is ultimately from the Latin viola and derived from an early and unknown Mediterranean word.

Black – a word which has the identical root as the colour blue. Here the Proto-Indo-European bhel developed from ‘to shine, flash, burn’ in the sense of the residue left behind after a fire, that which had been ‘blackened’ or ‘burned’.

White – the Proto-Indo-European root here is kweit meaning ‘to shine’.

Gold – here the meaning is again ‘to shine’ but this time the reference is to metals.

Silver – a later word than gold and for very good reason. Whilst there is no doubt silver was used decoratively, the original reference was to ‘money’, and possibly prior to that to the smelting or refining of the metal.

Purple – originated as the name of the shellfish from which the colour was produced. The earlier etymology is uncertain but is certainly related to the Latin purpura which, in some contexts, was used to refer to ‘finery, splendid attire’.

Brown – ultimately the Old English brun shares an origin with the words ‘bear’ and ‘beaver’. The idea of a ‘brown or dark animal’ is also seen in the Greek phrynos, again meaning ‘the brown animal’.

Beige – not seen as a colour before 1879 it was used twenty years earlier to refer to ‘fine woolen fabric’ and prior to that from the Old French as ‘natural colour of wool and cotton’.

Cerise – again not seen before the nineteenth century and from the French cerise or ‘cherry’.

Chartreuse – came to be the name of a colour as it was likened to the pale apple-green colour of the liqueur of this name, itself derived from the monastery of a Carthusian order of monks, named from the mountain in the French Alps where the monastery was built.

Cyan – not seen as a colour in English until 1889, it is not an Indo-European word but related to the Hittite kuwannan or ‘copper blue’.

Ecru – is a French word, it is not seen in English before 1869, and means ‘raw, unbleached’.

Magenta – first used in 1860 and named after the Battle of Magenta in Italy. Here a combined French and Sardinian force defeated the Austrians shortly before the dye producing the colour was first produced.

Mauve – is a French word and not used in English before 1859. It comes from Old French and ultinmately from Latin malva, itself a reference to the mallow plant from which the dye was first obtained.

Taupe – is not seen in English until 1906, it comes from the French taupe meaning ‘a mole’, the colour of the mole’s skin being the same dark brownish-grey colour.

Puce – first seen in English in 1787, this is from the French puce meaning ‘flea’ and ultimately from Proto-Indo-European plou with the same meaning and seemingly seen as the colour of fleas.

There are also colours called Hooker’s Green, Fuzzy Wuzzy, Little Boy Blue, Meat Brown, Neon Carrot, New Car, Outer Space, Peru, Screaming Green, Shampoo, Waterspout, and Zomp, none of which I shall be attempting to explain.