Etymologically
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hue

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Pronunciation

hue1 colour

Etymology

The word for colour is inherited from Middle English hewe,[2][3][4] inherited from Old English hīw (“colour, form, appearance, beauty”), also hēow and hīow,[5][6][7][8] from Proto-Germanic *hiwją.[9][10] It is cognate with Gothic 𐌷𐌹𐍅𐌹 (hiwi, “form, appearance”), Old Norse hȳ (“down, fine hair”) and Swedish hy (“skin, complexion”).[5][3][4][11] Barnhart and Watkins take it from Proto-Indo-European *ḱei-, a colour root,[6][5] and Klein relates it to hoar and to Lithuanian šývas (“white”);[4] Hoad calls the Germanic word of unknown origin.[12]

Earliest recorded meaning

Colour, and also form, appearance: Barnhart finds the form hēo about 750, in Cynewulf's Elene,[6] and the OED's first quotation for "colour" is from the Blickling Homilies.[7]

Semantic evolution

In Old English the word meant form, shape and appearance as much as colour, and could even mean an apparition;[7][5] these senses died out in the 17th century, except in Scots.[7][13][14] From the 13th century it was used of the complexion of the face.[7] Etymonline and Weekley say that hue was largely pushed aside by colour after about 1600, surviving mainly in poetry,[5][15] until it was revived in the 1850s as a technical term:[5][13] in 1855 Maxwell used it for the attribute by which a colour is seen as red, green or blue, as distinct from its brightness and saturation.[7] As Middle English pronunciation changed, the spelling moved from hewe to heu and hue, which was fully established only in the late 17th century, perhaps under the influence of the French-derived hue, outcry.[6]

Timeline

  • c. 750 – hēo, colour, form.[6]
  • Old English – form, shape, appearance (obsolete by 1653).[7]
  • c. 1275 – complexion of the face.[7]
  • c. 1450 – the spelling hue.[6]
  • 1855 – in colour science, the attribute that makes a colour red, green, blue and so on.[7]
  • 1857 – a tint or variety of a colour.[7]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A colour or shade of colour: the pale hues of early spring.[16][3][7]
  2. The property of a colour that makes it red, green, blue and so on, as distinct from its brightness and saturation.[16][3][7]
  3. Character or aspect: politicians of every hue.[16][3]

Verb

  1. To give colour to; to tinge.[3][7]

Word family

  • hued
  • hueless

hue2 outcry

Etymology

The outcry is inherited from Middle English hu, also hew,[3] borrowed from Old French hue (“outcry, noise, war cry, hunting cry”), also hu and huee,[5][6][3][7] from huer (“to shout, hoot”),[3][4][8] probably of imitative origin.[5][6][7] The Anglo-Norman word is recorded from 1155, as a cry to drive on or chase an animal and as the clamour of battle.[17] Klein compares hoot.[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Outcry, clamour: Barnhart finds hiue probably before 1200, in Layamon's Brut;[6] Etymonline dates it to the mid-13th century,[5] and the OED to about 1330, in Mannyng's chronicle.[7]

Semantic evolution

The word meant the shouting of a crowd, especially in war or the hunt,[7][8] and the related verb hue, to shout, is recorded from before 1250, in The Owl and the Nightingale; it lived on in Cornwall for the shouts that guide seine fishermen.[7][8] The noun survives only in hue and cry, which appears as an Anglo-French legal term in 1246 for the outcry raised to pursue a felon,[6][5] and was extended to any cry of alarm by the 1580s.[5][6] Weekley notes that the phrase was at first probably a hunting expression, and that until 1838 Hue and Cry was the subtitle of the official police gazette.[15]

Timeline

  • before 1200 – hiue, outcry, in Layamon.[6]
  • 1246 – hue and cry, as a legal term in Anglo-French.[6]
  • before 1250 – the verb hue, to shout.[7]
  • c. 1330 – outcry, shouting (obsolete except in hue and cry by 1779).[7]
  • 1580s – hue and cry, any cry of alarm.[5][6]

Meanings

Noun

  1. (archaic) A shout or outcry, now only in hue and cry, a loud public protest or, historically, the cry raised to pursue a criminal.[3][8][7]

Word family

  • hue and cry
  • hoar
  • hoot

References

  1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  4. ^ a b c d e Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  8. ^ a b c d e Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  9. ^ Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary (1999), 2nd ed., New York: Random House
  10. ^ Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Germanisches Wörterbuch, 5th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
  11. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
  12. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  13. ^ a b Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  14. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
  15. ^ a b Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
  16. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
  17. ^ Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)