yellow

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   The colour of lemons and sunflowers.

   She painted the kitchen a bright, cheerful yellow.

2. 2
   adj

   Having the colour of lemons or sunflowers.

   He had a yellow laptop in his bag.

3. 3
   verb

   To slowly turn yellow, usually with age.

   The pages of the old book had begun to yellow.

4. 4
   adj

   Lacking courage; cowardly.

   His friends called him yellow for refusing to stand up to the bully.

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Simplified etymology

Yellow is an Old English word whose root probably covered a wider range of colours than the modern term. It shares an ancestor with gold and is related to gall, bile, and the final element of melancholy, connections associated with the greenish colour of bile. Yolk is also historically related to yellow.

From Middle English yelwe, yelou, from Old English ġeolwe, oblique form of Old English ġeolu, from Proto-West Germanic *gelu, from Proto-Germanic *gelwaz, from Proto-Indo-European *ǵʰelh₃wós, from *ǵʰelh₃- (“gleam, yellow”). Cognate with Scots yella (“yellow”), North Frisian gööl, güül (“yellow”), Saterland Frisian jeel (“yellow”), West Frisian giel (“yellow”), Cimbrian gel, ghéel (“yellow”), Dutch geel (“yellow”), Dutch Low Saxon gael, gel (“yellow”), German gelb, gehl (“yellow”), German Low German gel, geel, gęl, gäl (“yellow”), Luxembourgish giel (“yellow”), Vilamovian gaoł (“yellow”), Yidd…

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External links

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