# Latin colorato in Romance languages: Spanish deviation



## akhooha

The Latin word colorato (meaning "colored") is found in Romance languages as follows:
colorido (Portuguese)
colorato (Italian)
coloré (French)
colorado (Spanish)
The words above all signify "colored".
However, in the case of Spanish (and only in Spanish), it also has the meaning of "red".
Is there an explanation for the reason for this additional meaning in Spanish?
Thank you.


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## Wolverine9

Red is traditionally considered a color par excellence, at least in Indo-European cultures, which is why you will sometimes find words that mean "color" or "colored" also specifically mean "red."  In addition, red dyes were used to color clothing; hence, "colored" came to signify "red."


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## Maroseika

Even stronger "universality" of red color is expressed in some Slavic languages, where not only "to colour" (*крас*ить) is a cognate of red (*крас*ный), but even the word meaning "red"  originates from the word "beauty" (*крас*а).


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## bibax

In some Slavic languages the adjective *'red'* is derived from the noun 'worm', it is a passive participle of the verb "to (dye-by-)worm" and literally means "wormed"/"dyed-by-worm", "gusanado", "verminato"/"vermuto?", ...


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## CapnPrep

akhooha said:


> However, in the case of Spanish (and only in Spanish), it also has the meaning of "red".


This specialization is already present in Latin, see L&S: "cŏlōrātus […] _Colored_, _having color_ […] Esp., _colored red_, _red_, _imbrowned_".


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## fdb

Similarly Sanskrit _rakta-_, “coloured, red”, from IE *(s)reg, Greek ῥέζω “to colour, dye”.


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## Dan2

All of the responses so far (all very interesting) have really focused on the question "why red (of all colors)".  But the question the OP asked was "why Spanish (of all Romance languages)".  (CapnPrep shows that the presupposition is not entirely true, but that's not relevant to my point.)

More generally, we've seen a lot of questions in this forum of the nature, "Why has word W taken on meaning M when it previously didn't have this meaning?" I would attempt to answer that question by saying that words simply have a tendency to drift in meaning and/or take on additional meanings. Sometimes, perhaps, an explanation is available, but the phenomenon seems largely to be random.

The same is true with respect to sound change: We've seen a lot of questions about this, and sometimes, ultimately, the answer is it's just random. For ex., mispronunciations by young children (if they don't cause unacceptable ambiguity) may be adopted by the larger community at a random time in the history of the language.

Now this doesn't mean that there are no constraints on this "drift".  New meanings of words usually seem related to existing meanings and certain types of sound change are more likely than others.  So we would not be surprised to find that in 22nd-century English "tree" can mean "forest" and that /l/ before a consonant is not pronounced, but very much surprised to find that "tree" means "cat" and that final /s/ is pronounced /i/.

At least, this is how things seem to me, a non-expert on these matters.  I'd be interested to hear other opinions.


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## akhooha

CapnPrep said:


> This specialization is already present in Latin, see L&S: "cŏlōrātus […] _Colored_, _having color_ […] Esp., _colored red_, _red_, _imbrowned_".


Interesting.  I hadn't been aware that the Latin term had the additional meaning of red. I wonder if this somehow relates to Brent Berlin's theory of the evolution of color terms (i.e. all languages have at least 2 color terms (black & white, or dark and light), but if the language has 3 color terms, the third will always be "red", and if 4 color terms then the 4th will be green or yellow, and so on).
In light of the additional meaning of "red" in Latin, I suppose the real question (and probably an unanswerable one) is why was this meaning apparently retained in Spanish but abandoned in other Romance languages?


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## fdb

In French at least _color__é_ is a Latinism. The inherited French derivative of _colorare_ is _coudrer_ “to dye leather”.


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## Quiviscumque

Spanish has used many words to denote "red". I do not know if there is a PhD dissertation about it, or something like that, but the question deserves it.

"Bermejo" (form _vermiculus_) is perhaps the more common word in Medieval Spanish. "Encarnado" (from _caro_) was also used. These words are now intelligible, but not very common. Corominas says that "colorado" acquires this predominant meaning in the 15th century (it was always used but mainly with other meanings). 

Now the standard term is perhaps "rojo", form _russeus_ (not from _rubeus_). And don't forget the poetic "carmesí", from the Arabic _qirmiz _(supposedly meaning "worm", I must trust).
With "tinto" (from _tinctus_) we can see developments similar to those of "colorado".  "Vino tinto" is "red wine", "vin rouge"; and in Colombia "un tinto" is "a cup of black coffee".In the light of all this, many more questions arise, besides "why _colorado_?"


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## akhooha

Quiviscumque said:


> ... And don't forget the poetic "carmesí", from the Arabic _qirmiz _(supposedly meaning "worm", I must trust). ...


Actually _qirmiz_ (قِرْمِز) refers specifically to the insect _coccus ilicus_ or _coccus baphicus_, the female bodies of which produce cochineal, the stuff used to make the red dye. Arabic _qirmiz _comes from the Persian qirmiz which, in addition to referring to that insect, also is used generically for the color red.
The female _qirmiz, _when it loses its wings and settles on a kermes oak (quercus coccifera), has a rather worm-like appearance which probably gave rise to its  Middle Latin term of _vermiculum_ (from which, of course, comes English vermillion and Spanish "Bermejo" as Quivuscumque mentioned).
All of which, of course, doesn't address the issue of "colorado", and is probably too much information, but one thing leads to another...
P.S. An interesting "animal chemistry" book from 1803, while it also mistakenly referred to the "worm" meaning of the Arabic "qirmiz", nevertheless has some interesting information about that insect and dye production:
History of the process and present state of animal chemistry (W.B. Johnson)


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## swift

Hi, everyone!

A bibliography and a link to an interesting cross-cultural article here. 

All the best,


swift


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## berndf

akhooha said:


> Interesting.  I hadn't been aware that the Latin term had the additional meaning of red.


I am not sure this is the right way to approach the question. Since _color_ in Latin, and incidentally also_ χρῶμα_ in Greek, seem to have originally referred to the hue of the human skin, it may well be that red is not a narrowed meaning, but that _color_ meaning _any colour_ may well be a widening of an originally narrower concept.


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## Nino83

In Italian we say _colorito_ as opposed to _pallido_ to describe one whose face or cheeks are red or rosy or pink. 
The Italian word for _coloured_ is _colorato_.


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## learnerr

Maroseika said:


> Even stronger "universality" of red color is expressed in some Slavic languages, where not only "to colour" (*крас*ить) is a cognate of red (*крас*ный), but even the word meaning "red"  originates from the word "beauty" (*крас*а).


The question is what they meant at the time, especially the last two?..

As for "красить"/"раскрашивать" etc, these words indeed mean "to paint" (either some specific colour or many colours at once, this depends on the specific word), and in technological or entertainmental, rather than artistic, sense.


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## learnerr

Dan2 said:


> More generally, we've seen a lot of questions in this forum of the nature, "Why has word W taken on meaning M when it previously didn't have this meaning?" I would attempt to answer that question by saying that words simply have a tendency to drift in meaning and/or take on additional meanings. Sometimes, perhaps, an explanation is available, but the phenomenon seems largely to be random.
> 
> The same is true with respect to sound change: We've seen a lot of questions about this, and sometimes, ultimately, the answer is it's just random. For ex., mispronunciations by young children (if they don't cause unacceptable ambiguity) may be adopted by the larger community at a random time in the history of the language.


Very interesting post, thank you. If we look at a single word in the language, its changes of meaning indeed look entirely random. But what if we compare developments of sense in many different words? I mean: perhaps, people of different cultures regard differently themselves, the world and their place in it, and also have different ideas about how to think, what is important what is less, and so they have a tendency to understand words that others say in some specific ways. We can't look directly into people's skulls, but if we compare similar or different traits of meaningful usage of somehow similar words, then we probably can come to some good conclusions. As for sound shifts, well... I see no way how they can be explained by cultural differences between different societies.

I am not by any means an expert either, though.


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## jmx

A couple of clarifications about the Spanish word "colorado".

First, it is hardly ever used with any meaning other than 'red'. For 'colored', we have _de color, de colores, coloreado, colorido_, etc.

Second, I've always thought that the primary meaning of "colorado" is 'red in the face', and that a generic meaning of 'any red' is secondary to it. That's my personal intuition.


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## Outsider

While "colorido" means "colored" or "colorful" and not "red" in Portuguese, notice that its cognate "corado" does mean "flushed", "blushing". And "colorido" has the look of being a late cultism built straight from Latin, as Fdb said is the case of French "coloré", rather than part of the original Portuguese vocabulary.

*Quiviscumque*, I always thought "encarnado" (which we still use in Portuguese, along with "vermelho") was derived from "carne", flesh... And "roxo" has changed meaning from "red" to "purple".


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## apmoy70

berndf said:


> I am not sure this is the right way to approach the question. Since _color_ in Latin, and incidentally also_ χρῶμα_ in Greek, seem to have originally referred to the hue of the human skin, it may well be that red is not a narrowed meaning, but that _color_ meaning _any colour_ may well be a widening of an originally narrower concept.


Whence *«ἡ χρώς» hē kʰrōs* --> _the-feminine flesh, skin_ in ancient Gr. 
During my military service I remember we new recruits were given buzz cut hair styles, in Gr. *«ἐν χρῷ» ĕn kʰrộ* (Mod. Gr. pron. [en xro]) --> _close to the skin_


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## Quiviscumque

Outsider said:


> *Quiviscumque*, I always thought "encarnado" (which we still use in Portuguese, along with "vermelho") was derived from "carne", flesh...



Of course, from _carnem_ (nom. _caro_).


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