kermes

Etymology

It is borrowed from French kermès,^{[2][3][4][5][6][7]} which the American Heritage Dictionary takes as short for alkermès,^[8] from Arabic قِرْمِز (qirmiz, “kermes”),^{[1][8][4][6][7]} also a Persian word according to the OED and Weekley.^[2][9] Etymonline and Wiktionary put Medieval Latin cremesinus between the French and the Arabic.^[10][1] The OED derives alkermès apparently from Spanish alquermes, with the Arabic article.^[2] Dictionary.com notes that the word replaced an earlier spelling chermez, from Italian chermes.^[11] Further back, several dictionaries trace the Arabic to Sanskrit कृमिज (kṛmija, “produced by a worm”),^{[8][12][10][6][13]} a compound of a word for "worm" and one for "produced";^[12][10][13] Wiktionary instead has a Persian word meaning "worm-coloured", possibly through a Sanskrit formation, from Proto-Indo-Iranian *kŕ̥miš (“worm”).^[1] Etymonline's root for "worm" is Proto-Indo-European *kwrmi-, also the source of Lithuanian kirmis, Old Irish cruim and Albanian krimp.^[10] The same Arabic word gave crimson and carmine.^[2][13][10]

Earliest recorded meaning

The small evergreen oak on which the insect lives: the 1590s in Etymonline, the late 16th century in the Shorter Oxford,^[10][3] and 1605 in the OED, in Sylvester's translation of Du Bartas.^[2]

Semantic evolution

The insects, which live on the evergreen oak in the Levant and southern Europe, were the main source of red and scarlet dye in ancient Europe.^[10] Because the live females cling motionless to the tree and look like round grains the size of peas, they were long taken for a seed or a growth of the tree,^[10][2] and Greek called the dye source Ancient Greek κόκκος (kókkos, “kernel, berry”),^[10][14] which passed into Latin as coccum.^[10] Johnson (1755), quoting Hill, reports that it was "till lately" understood to be a vegetable growth but was now known to be the body of an animal.^[15] The word for the insect is recorded in English from about 1600.^[10][4][2] The name also went to a chemical, kermes mineral, a brilliant red antimony trisulfide, from 1753,^[2][7] now rare or obsolete.^[3] Weekley compares vermilion for a colour named after a worm.^[9]

Timeline

• 1590s – the kermes oak.^[10][3] The OED's first record is from 1605.^[2]
• c. 1600 – the insect yielding the red dye, and the dye.^[10] Merriam-Webster Unabridged has 1603, and the OED 1610.^[4][2]
• 1753 – kermes mineral, a red antimony trisulfide.^[2]
• 1843 – the mineral name kermesite.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. The dried bodies of female scale insects of the genus Kermes, used as a red dyestuff; the scarlet dye made from them.^[12][4][3]
2. The insect itself, found on the kermes oak; capitalised, the genus.^[2][4][3]
3. A small evergreen oak, Quercus coccifera, of the Mediterranean region, with prickly leaves like holly; in full kermes oak.^[12][2][3]
4. (rare) kermes mineral: a red antimony trisulfide, in chemistry and pharmacology.^[2][3]

Word family

• kermesite

Related words

• crimson
• carmine
• alkermes
• cramoisy

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g h Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
4. ^ a b c d e f Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
5. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
7. ^ a b c Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ a b c The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
9. ^ a b Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
10. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
11. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
12. ^ a b c d Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
13. ^ a b c Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
14. ^ Beekes, Robert S. P. (2010), Etymological Dictionary of Greek, with the assistance of Lucien van Beek, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 10, Leiden; Boston: Brill
15. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.