índigo

Forms

índigo m (plural índigos)^[1] The first record has the form índico;^[2][3] Corominas could not find índigo in Castilian before Terreros, in the late 18th century.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin indicus (“of India”), so called because the dye was brought from India.^[2][3] Corominas thinks it probably came through Genoese or Venetian.^[2][3] Gómez de Silva and Bénaben start from the neuter indicum (“indigo”), used as a noun.^[4][5] The Latin adjective is from Ancient Greek ἰνδικός (indikós), from Ἰνδία (Indía, “India”).^[1][4]

Corominas doubts the common view that French indigo, English indigo and Dutch indigo were taken from Spanish.^[2] French has the word from 1589 or 1624, English perhaps from 1499 or 1555, and Italian indaco and Catalan indi are much older: Italian had the form éndego in 1298, and the Catalan word is in the 13th-century customs of Tortosa.^[2] He concludes that the word spread through Europe with the Mediterranean trade with the East, not through Spanish America, and that the Spanish and Portuguese form of the word was probably taken later from French.^[2] The DHLF derives the French word, first spelt indico in 1544, probably from Portuguese.^[6] The DELI dates the Italian word to 1299–1300, with earlier Medieval Latin records from Viterbo (1237) and Venice (1246).^[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record, from Laguna in 1555, has the form índico for the blue dye brought from India.^[2][3]

Semantic evolution

In Spain and Portugal the usual name for the plant and the dye was añil (Portuguese anil); índigo remained the less common word.^[2] Terreros, in the 1780s, entered indigo as a synonym of añil and described the plant.^[8] In 1846 Domínguez defined it as a chemical substance taken from the añil shrub, as one of the seven colours of the solar spectrum, and as a dark blue.^[9] Today it names the shrub, the dye paste made from its leaves and stems, and the colour, and is used as an invariable adjective.^[10][11] In Honduras and El Salvador it is the usual name for the añil plant.^[12]

Timeline

• 1555 – first record, in the form índico, in Laguna.^[2][3]
• 1763 – recorded in Santo Domingo among the island's products: cueros y sebos, índigo, agodón “hides and tallow, indigo, cotton”.^[13]
• 1786–1793 – Terreros enters indigo as a synonym of añil;^[8][2] Corominas finds no earlier record of this form in Castilian.^[8][2]
• 1846 – Domínguez adds the chemical sense and the colour of the spectrum.^[9]
• 1865 – in Uruguay the indigo plant is said to grow wild in the fields.^[13]
• 1899 – the Academy's dictionary gives the etymology Latin indicus “of India”.^[14]

Meanings

Noun

1. The indigo plant, the shrub also called añil.^[10][11][1]
2. The dark blue dye paste made from the leaves and stems of this plant.^[10][11]
3. The colour indigo, a dark violet-blue, the sixth colour of the spectrum.^[11][1]

Adjective

1. Of the colour indigo; invariable: unos pantalones índigo.^[11][1]

Related words

• añil
• índico
• indio
• Latin indicus
• Italian indaco

Usage notes

As an adjective of colour índigo does not change for gender or number.^[11][1] Índico, the form of the first record, is today the adjective “Indian” (the océano Índico); Moliner still gives it as a synonym of índigo.^[15][4]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 3, 448
3. ^ a b c d e f Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. índigo
4. ^ a b c Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México, p. 380
5. ^ Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses, p. s.v. índigo
6. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
7. ^ Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
8. ^ a b c Terreros y Pando, Esteban de (1786–1793), Diccionario castellano con las voces de ciencias y artes y sus correspondientes de las tres lenguas francesa, latina e italiana, 4 vols., Madrid: Viuda de Ibarra, p. 2, 341
9. ^ a b Domínguez, Ramón Joaquín (1846–1847), Diccionario nacional o gran diccionario clásico de la lengua española, 2 vols., Madrid: Establecimiento Léxico-Tipográfico de R. J. Domínguez, p. 992
10. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (2001), Diccionario de la lengua española, 22nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, p. s.v. índigo
11. ^ a b c d e f Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. índigo
12. ^ Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. índigo
13. ^ a b Boyd-Bowman, Peter (2003), Léxico hispanoamericano 1493–1993, ed. Ray Harris-Northall and John J. Nitti, New York: Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies, p. s.v. índigo
14. ^ Real Academia Española (1899), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 13th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de los Sres. Hernando y Compañía, p. 553
15. ^ Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. índigo