onyx

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English oniche, also oneche and onix,^[2][3][4][5] borrowed from Anglo-Norman oniche and Old French oniche (12th century),^[6][3][7] beside onyx and onix;^[6][5] according to the OED, the first pair comes from the Latin oblique stem and the second from the nominative.^[6] It is also directly borrowed from Latin onyx (“onyx stone, onyx marble”),^[3][4][6] which is from Ancient Greek ὄνυξ (ónux, “onyx stone”), a sense developed from earlier Greek "nail, claw".^[6][3][7][8] The stone was named for the resemblance of its colour to a fingernail.^[6][3][4] Ayto explains that some onyx is pink with white streaks, like a pink fingernail with its pale crescent at the base,^[9] while Collins puts the name down to its veined appearance.^[10] The Greek word comes from the same Indo-European base as nail,^[6][3][9] which the American Heritage Dictionary gives as Proto-Indo-European *nogh-.^[11] The Anglo-Norman word is recorded from the first third of the 12th century.^[12] The Latin word was borrowed into other languages too, such as Italian onice, Spanish ónix and Dutch onyx.^[6] Middle English also had onicle, from about 1250, and onichine, in the Wycliffite Bible, but these mostly disappeared in early modern English.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

The banded stone: about 1330, in the Auchinleck manuscript of Floris and Blauncheflur (composed about 1250), which speaks of oneches and chalcedonies in the gravel of a stream.^[6][2] Barnhart dates oneche to about 1250 and Etymonline to the mid 13th century.^[4][3]

Semantic evolution

The word has kept its meaning of a banded stone, used especially for cameos.^[6][13] In Trevisa's translation of Bartholomaeus (before 1398), onyx from India is the colour of fire with white veins, and onyx from Arabia is black with veins.^[2] The King James Bible (1611) used it for onycha, an ingredient of incense, a sense that soon died out.^[6][13] From 1706 to the late 19th century it was also a medical term for an opacity of the cornea resembling a fingernail.^[6][13] As an adjective it has described things with the translucent, banded look of onyx since the mid 19th century,^[6][13] and Merriam-Webster Unabridged records the sense "jet-black".^[5] Johnson (1755) described it as a semi-transparent gem with brown and white zones.^[14]

Timeline

• c. 1330 – the banded stone, as oneches.^[6][2] Barnhart dates oneche to about 1250.^[4]
• c. 1335 – the form onix, in The Land of Cokaygne.^[2] Barnhart dates onix to before 1300.^[4]
• 1611 – onycha, an ingredient of incense (obsolete, until 1635).^[6][13]
• 1706 – in medicine, an opacity of the cornea (until 1879).^[6][13]
• before 1849 – adjective, translucent and banded like onyx.^[6]

Meanings

Noun

1. A variety of chalcedony with straight, parallel bands of alternating colours, such as black and white, used for cameos and other jewellery.^[10][5][6]
2. Onyx marble, a banded calcite used as an ornamental stone.^[10][5]
3. (obsolete, 1611–1635) Onycha.^[6][13]
4. (medicine, obsolete, 1706–1879) An opacity of the lower part of the cornea, caused by pus.^[6][13]

Adjective

1. Of or resembling onyx: a box with onyx inlays.^[6][13]
2. Jet-black: her onyx hair.^[5]

Word family

• onyx marble

Related words

• nail
• sardonyx
• onycha

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e 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)
3. ^ a b c d e f g Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d e f g Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
5. ^ a b c d e f Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
6. ^ 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
7. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
9. ^ a b Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
10. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
11. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
12. ^ Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
13. ^ a b c d e f g h i Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
14. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.