carmesí

Forms

carmesí m or f (masculine and feminine plural carmesí or carmesíes or carmesís)^[1] Old Spanish had clemesín (14th century) and cremesín, cremesino and carmesín;^[2][3] Oviedo still wrote the adjective carmesino in 1535.^[2][3] Santillana's Triunfete de amor (c. 1430) has the spellings carmessí and carmesý.^[4]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Andalusian Arabic قرمزي (qarmazí, “crimson”), an adjective derived from قرمز (qármaz, “cochineal”), in Classical Arabic قِرْمِز (qirmiz).^[2][5][6][3] The Arabic noun comes from a Persian word for “worm”, distantly related to Latin vermis (“worm”).^[2][5] Corominas holds that the modern Spanish form was not taken from Arabic directly but through another Romance language, most probably Catalan carmesí, recorded in 1398.^[2][5] The DLE gives only the Andalusian Arabic source.^[6]

The same word is Portuguese carmesim, Italian cremisi and Old Occitan cremesin.^[2][7] Galician carmesí and the old Galician carmeso belong here too.^[8][7]

The Arabic noun itself gave Old Spanish carmez, recorded in Leonese charters of 914 and 935, and the later carmes, quermes and alquermes.^[2][9] Corominas links carmín with it too, by a route that remains unclear.^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas's first record is the form clemesín in a 14th-century Pentateuch.^[2] In the CDH this is the Escorial Bible I.j.4 (c. 1400), which names among the materials of the Tabernacle lo cardeno, e con la purpura, e con lo clemesin e con el lino “the blue, the purple, the crimson and the linen”.^[4] The first copy contemporary with its text is González de Clavijo's account of his embassy to Tamerlane (c. 1406), which mentions vn tapete colorado clemesyn “a crimson-red carpet”.^[4]

Semantic evolution

In the 15th century the word was mostly a noun for a red silk cloth, as in Gómez Manrique, and an adjective of dress: Santillana's pages wore dun fino carmessí raso “of fine crimson satin”.^[2][4] Juan de Dueñas praised the fine colour of carmesí cloth before 1440.^[4] In 1495 Nebrija rendered it with Latin purpura, and his Latin dictionary of 1492 used it for the purple dye of the murex.^[10] Corominas finds the adjective carmesí itself first in Lope; until then carmesino was used.^[2]

In the Americas Fernández de Oviedo compared tropical fruit and the dye of sea-shells with carmesí in 1546–1548, and Puebla inventories of 1549 list crimson damask.^[11] The Academy's dictionary of 1899 defined it as the colour given by the kermes insect and the powder of that colour; the DLE keeps those senses and the red silk cloth.^[12][6]

Timeline

• 914 – Leonese charters record the base word carmez.^[2][9]
• 14th century – clemesín in a Pentateuch, Corominas's first record.^[2]
• c. 1400 – the Escorial Bible I.j.4 has clemesin.^[4]
• c. 1406 – González de Clavijo writes clemesyn.^[4]
• c. 1430 – Santillana writes carmessí and carmesý.^[4]
• mid-15th century – Gómez Manrique uses carmesí for a red silk cloth.^[2][5]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija's Spanish–Latin dictionary: carmesí, Latin purpura.^[10]
• 1535 – Fernández de Oviedo writes the adjective carmesino.^[2]
• 1546 – first record in the Americas, in Santo Domingo.^[11]

Meanings

Adjective

1. crimson: of the deep red colour of grana, the dye of the kermes insect; also used as a noun for the colour: Las cortinas eran de un carmesí oscuro.^[6][1]
2. Having that colour: un manto carmesí.^[6][1]

Noun

1. Powder of the colour of kermes grana.^[6]
2. A red silk fabric.^[6][13]

Related words

• carmín
• quermes
• alquermes
• Catalan carmesí

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 Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 1, 876
3. ^ a b c Corriente, Federico (1999), Diccionario de arabismos y voces afines en iberorromance, Madrid: Gredos, p. 23
4. ^ a b c d e f g h Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. carmesí
5. ^ a b c d e Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. carmesí
6. ^ a b c d e f g Real Academia Española; Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2014–), Diccionario de la lengua española, 23rd ed., online version 23.8, https://dle.rae.es, p. s.v. carmesí
7. ^ a b Corriente, Federico; Pereira, Christophe; Vicente, Ángeles (2019), Dictionnaire des emprunts ibéro-romans: emprunts à l'arabe et aux langues du monde islamique (Encyclopédie linguistique d'Al-Andalus 3), Berlin: De Gruyter, p. s.v. carmesí
8. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. quermezi
9. ^ a b Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. carmesí
10. ^ a b Lleal, Coloma (dir.), DICCA-XV: Diccionario del castellano del siglo XV en la Corona de Aragón, Barcelona: Universitat de Barcelona, Grup d'Estudis d'Història de la Llengua (GHCL), https://ghcl.ub.edu/diccaxv, p. s.v. carmesí
11. ^ 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. carmesí
12. ^ Real Academia Española (1899), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 13th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de los Sres. Hernando y Compañía, p. 199
13. ^ Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. carmesí