Editor's Corner

I don’t know if any of you learned the song “I Can Sing a Rainbow” as kids, but my brother and I learned a jacked-up version of it in Catholic school and it did NOT help us remember the order of colors in a prism later on. The song talks about pink, for goodness sake—and leaves indigo out altogether! But I digress.

Today’s little nugget of wisdom, from Daily Writing Tips, is about some colorful words we have borrowed from Greek.

Black
We get the combining form melano from the Greek word meaning dark or black.

· melancholy: a gloomy mental state; according to ancient physiology, a humor called “black bile” was secreted by the kidneys and the spleen, and was thought to cause melancholia.

· melanoma: a skin tumor containing a dark pigment.

· melanin: any dark brown or black pigments of animal or plant structures, for example, hair, or the surface of a raw potato when exposed to air.

White
The element leuk in certain medical terms is from the Greek word for white.

· leukemia: a chronic disease characterized by an abnormal increase in the number of white blood cells.

· leukocyte: a white blood cell.

Red
The Greek word for red gives us the combining form erythro, which is used in the specialized terminology of medicine, chemistry, and mineralogy.

· erythrophyll: the red coloring matter of leaves in autumn.

· erythroretin: a resinous constituent of rhubarb root.

· erythroscope: an optical contrivance, by which the green of foliage is caused to appear red, while all other green objects retain their natural color.

· erythrocyte: a red blood corpuscle.

Blue
Cyan is the Greek word for dark blue, but what artists call “cyan blue” is a color midway between green and blue.

· cyanide: an extremely poisonous crystalline solid. It got its name because it was first obtained by heating the dye pigment known as Prussian blue.

· cyanin: the blue coloring matter of certain flowers (e.g., violets and cornflowers).

· cyanosis: blueness of the skin owing to the circulation of imperfectly oxygenated blood.

Green
The Greek word from which we get the combining form chlor described a pale green.

· chlorophyll: the coloring matter of the leaves and other green parts of plants.

· chlorine: a yellowish-green heavy gas.

Finally, the Greek word for color gives us the combining form chromo, which creates nouns and adjectives that denote colored objects, coloring processes, and coloring agents:

· chromatic: full of color.

· polychrome: art executed in many colors.

· chromium: a metallic element remarkable for the brilliant colors—red, yellow, or green—of its compounds.

Kara Church

Technical Editor, Advisory