chromatic

Etymology

It is partly borrowed from Latin chrōmaticus and partly borrowed from Ancient Greek χρωματικός (khrōmatikós, “relating to colour”),^[2][3][4][5] the Greek word chiefly in its musical sense;^[2] Barnhart thinks the earlier French chromatique may have helped.^[6][7] The Greek adjective is from χρῶμα (khrôma, “colour, complexion, character”), genitive χρώματος (khrṓmatos),^[4][3][6] which also named certain modifications of the diatonic scale in Greek music.^[3][8] The noun is the source of chroma and chrome.^[4][3] Barnhart relates it to Proto-Indo-European *ghrō(u)- (“rub hard against”);^[6] Etymonline mentions the explanation from *ghreu- (“to rub, grind”), the root of grit, but quotes Beekes, who considers the Greek noun of uncertain origin.^[3] A Middle English cromatik, from Medieval Latin, is recorded in 1464 in Hardyng's Chronicle, of heretics who would not change their colour.^[9][6]

Earliest recorded meaning

Of one of the three kinds of tetrachord in ancient Greek music, the others being the diatonic and the enharmonic: 1603, in Holland's translation of Plutarch.^[2][6] Etymonline dates the musical sense to about 1600,^[3] and Dictionary.com to 1590–1600.^[10]

Semantic evolution

Etymonline notes that it is not clear why the Greeks used a word for "colour" in music; perhaps through its extended sense "ornaments, embellishments", the characteristic colouring of a scale.^[3] In English the word passed from the Greek tetrachord to modern music, where from about 1630, in a manuscript reading of Milton, it described notes that do not belong to the diatonic scale.^[2] In 1711 Addison used it figuratively of people.^[2] The colour senses came later and by another path: Dryden used the noun for the art of colouring in painting (1695); about 1790 it came to name the science of colour,^[2][6] from which Barnhart derives the adjective "of or relating to colour", recorded from 1831 in Brewster's chromatic aberration.^[6][2] Etymonline dates this sense to 1829.^[3] From 1864 it also meant brightly coloured.^[2][11]

Timeline

• 1464 – Middle English cromatik, one who keeps his colour, a dyed-in-the-wool heretic.^[9][6]
• 1603 – of one of the three kinds of tetrachord in Greek music.^[2][6]
• c. 1630 – in modern music, including notes outside the diatonic scale.^[2]
• 1695 – noun, the art of colouring in painting (obsolete by 1761).^[2]
• 1708 – noun, chromatic notes or harmonies, an accidental.^[2][8]
• 1711 – figuratively, of persons.^[2]
• 1831 – of or produced by colour, in chromatic aberration.^[2][6]
• 1864 – brightly coloured.^[2]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Of, relating to or produced by colour or colours; in colour science, having a hue or saturation: chromatic aberration in a cheap lens.^{[8][12][13][2]}
2. (music) Of, relating to or based on the chromatic scale, which proceeds by semitones; using notes outside the diatonic scale, raised or lowered by sharps and flats: a chromatic harmonica.^{[13][8][12][11]}
3. (music) Of chords and harmonies built on such notes.^[12][13]
4. (music) Of an ancient Greek tetrachord: of the kind made of two semitones and a minor third, as distinct from the diatonic and the enharmonic.^[8][11][2]
5. Full of colour; brightly coloured.^[8][2][11]

Noun

1. (music) An accidental; in the plural, chromatic notes or harmonies.^[8][2][11]
2. (obsolete) The art of colouring in painting (1695–1761).^[2][11]

Word family

• chromatically
• chromaticism
• heterochromatic
• idiochromatic
• achromatic
• allochromatic
• chromaticity
• dichromatic

Related words

• chromo-
• chromato-
• -chrome
• chromosome
• chroma
• chrome
• chromatin

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g h Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
5. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
7. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ a b c d e f g Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
9. ^ a b Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
10. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
11. ^ a b c d e f Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
12. ^ a b c The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
13. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins