Word for Wednesday: Yellow

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Our Word for Wednesday theme for January is colours. 

The word colour entered English via Old French and comes from the Latin ‘color’, from the Old Latin ‘colos’ meaning ‘a covering’, from the PIE root ‘kel-’ meaning ‘to conceal’. The word has been used in reference to skin colour since the early-thirteenth century and in reference to pigments and dye since the fourteenth century. 

The spelling colour became the common English spelling from the fourteenth century, but a classical correction made color an alternative from the fifteenth century. Color is now the common American English spelling of this word.

So far we’ve looked at the words red and orange. Today’s word is yellow. 

Yellow falls between orange and green on the colour spectrum and is the hue of ripe lemons, sunflowers, and egg yolks. 

The word comes from the Old English ‘geolwe’, from the Proto Germanic ‘gelwaz’, which in turn comes from the PIE ‘ghel’ meaning ‘to shine’.

In Greek mythology, 'Khloe' is a name for the goddess of harvest – the name literally means ‘young green shoot’ and is linked to ‘khloros’ meaning ‘greenish-yellow’. Can you hear the similarity between ‘yellow’ and ‘Khloe’?


20 Jan 2021
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"Thank goodness for Spellzone during this remote learning phase. The site is easy for students to navigate independently and they're really enjoying the activities and spelling games. You get an awful lot for your money with Spellzone. Really reassuring is the very prompt response with helpdesk queries. I've very rarely needed the helpdesk, but when I have, the issue has been addressed and sorted within a very short time."

Sarah Taggart, Oasis Academy Lord's Hill