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celadon (SEL-uh-don) - n., a pale grey-green color; a type of Chinese and Eastern-Asia porcelain with a translucent, pale green glaze.
The glaze color comes from iron oxide and resembles the color of jade. The English word was borrowed in 1768 from French céladon, but its origin before that is disputed: the most common assertion is that it's from a character in Honoré d'Urfé's 1610 romance l'Astrée named Céladon (in turn named from a character in Ovid's Metamorphoses) who always wore pale green ribbons; alternate theories include that it is from Salah-ed-din aka Saladin, Sultan of Egypt, who supposedly sent gifts of the ceramic to the Sultan of Syria in 1171, as the first introduction of the wares to the West, and that it's from Sanskrit sila + dhara, stone + green.
Off the rest of the week for the Stateside holiday -- back Monday with more words, words, words, as Hamlet put it.
---L.
The glaze color comes from iron oxide and resembles the color of jade. The English word was borrowed in 1768 from French céladon, but its origin before that is disputed: the most common assertion is that it's from a character in Honoré d'Urfé's 1610 romance l'Astrée named Céladon (in turn named from a character in Ovid's Metamorphoses) who always wore pale green ribbons; alternate theories include that it is from Salah-ed-din aka Saladin, Sultan of Egypt, who supposedly sent gifts of the ceramic to the Sultan of Syria in 1171, as the first introduction of the wares to the West, and that it's from Sanskrit sila + dhara, stone + green.
Off the rest of the week for the Stateside holiday -- back Monday with more words, words, words, as Hamlet put it.
---L.
