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pastel

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Pronunciation

  • UK: /ˈpæstl̩/, /ˈpæstəl/[1]
  • US: /pæsˈtɛl/[1]

Etymology

Most dictionaries take it as borrowed from French pastel (“crayon”),[2][3][4][5][6] from Italian pastello (“crayon made of pigment paste”);[2][3][4][7][8] the OED takes it directly from the Italian word.[7] The Italian word is either a use of a word meaning “little cake” or formed from pasta (“paste”) with a diminutive suffix,[7][8][5] and is traced back to Late Latin pastellus, a diminutive of pasta (“dough, paste”),[2][4][3][6] the source of paste and pasta.[4][2] Barnhart and Collins explain the Late Latin word as a dye made from woad, so called because the leaves of the plant were made into a paste.[3][6] The French word is recorded for a crayon from 1676 and the Italian from before 1571.[7] Skeat had derived it from Latin pastillus (“little loaf or roll”), as a crayon shaped like a roll.[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

A paste made of ground pigments mixed with gum, or a crayon made of it, for sketching or colouring: 1612, in Henry Peacham's Gentlemans Exercise.[7][10] Etymonline dates it to the 1660s, and Barnhart to 1662, in John Evelyn's writings.[2][3]

Semantic evolution

From the crayon the word passed to a drawing made in pastel and to the art of drawing with pastels: the OED's first record is from an American advertisement of 1791, while Barnhart dates the sense to Thackeray's The Newcomes (1855).[7][3] From 1890 a pastel was also a slight literary sketch, by comparison with the soft, impressionistic effect of a pastel drawing.[7][10] The pale, soft colours typical of pastels gave the sense of a pale or subdued shade, recorded from 1899,[7][2][3] especially of dress materials;[3] as an adjective, “pale, soft in colour”, it is dated to 1884 by Etymonline, Barnhart and Merriam-Webster and to 1899 by the OED,[2][3][10][7] which notes that this use is not found in French and Italian until later.[7]

Timeline

  • 1612 – a paste of ground pigment, or a crayon made of it, in Peacham's Gentlemans Exercise.[7][10] Etymonline dates the word to the 1660s and Barnhart to 1662.[2][3]
  • 1791 – a drawing made in pastel; the art of drawing with pastels.[7] Barnhart dates this sense to 1855, in Thackeray.[3]
  • 1884 – adjective, pale or light in colour.[2][3][10] The OED's first record is from 1899.[7]
  • 1890 – a slight literary sketch.[7]
  • 1899 – a pale or subdued shade of a colour.[7][2][3]
  • 1914 – adjective, consisting of soft colours.[7]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A crayon made of ground pigment bound with gum, or the paste it is made from.[6][10][7]
  2. A drawing made with such crayons, or the art or technique of drawing with them.[6][10][7]
  3. A pale, soft shade of a colour.[6][10][7]
  4. A short, light literary sketch.[6][10][7]

Adjective

  1. Pale and soft in colour: pastel pink walls.[6][10][7]
  2. Made with pastels: a pastel portrait.[10]
  3. Delicate or lacking in vigour, like a pastel.[10]

Word family

  • pastelist

Usage notes

A separate pastel, recorded from 1578, is the plant woad or the blue dye made from it;[7][10][6] it comes through Middle French pastel (“woad”) from Occitan pastel, formed from the word for paste because the plant was pounded to a paste for dyeing.[7][10] The OED notes that the forms of pastel overlap considerably with those of pastille.[7]

References

  1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  4. ^ a b c d The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
  5. ^ a b Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  6. ^ a b c d e f g h i Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
  7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  8. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  9. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
  10. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster