Smaragdine

When it comes to colors, our understanding has cultural and historical connotations.  The names of colors change over time as points of cultural relevance change and as the language evolves.  Many colors we are familiar with today (thanks to the miracles of synthetic chemistry and industrialization) were extremely esoteric to Europeans of the ancient and medieval world.  The old Latin and Greek words for exotic colors were influenced by rare jewels and unusual birds (which might be the only shared terrestrial examples of hues which were only seen in sunsets and other mutable natural phenomena).  We have already written about the ponderous word “icterine” an old Greco-Roman term for the beautiful pale yellow of various birds and insects. Today we take on an even more dissonant word which entered Middle-English in the 14^th century from ancient Greek (possibly by way of France).  “Smaragdine” is the bright blue-green color of emeralds. It was a color which was rare and precious in the 14^th century world.  The word has lingered in the corners of English and is still on the books today (although, if you ask your colleague to hand you the smaragdine mousepad you might not get the green one…or anything other than an angry stare or sharp words).  Even if the word smaragdine is not euphonic to modern ears, the color is exquisite and rich.  The chief conclusion of this etymological diversion is that Ferrebeekeeper needs to write more about emeralds.

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