vermeil

[prettygoodword]

vermeil (VUR-mil, ver-MAY) - n., a bright red or orange-red, vermilion; gilt silver or bronze; a liquid applied to a gilded surface to add luster.


The second pronunciation is especially associated with the second sense -- the color is usually pronounced the first way, which means I've been Doing It Wrong all these years. This is, as you might guess, yet another color name we got from French, borrowed in the late 14th century from Middle French, where it was an alternate form for vermilion, from Late Latin vermiculus, kermes being a variety of scale insect (genus Kermes) that grows on Mediterranean oaks and a red dye produced by crushing these insects, from Latin vermiculus, little worm, grub, from vermis, worm.

---L.

Comments

[thistleingrey.livejournal.com]

Borrowed a second time for the gilding, no? That'd explain the doubled pronunciation. Vermeil isn't what gilding is called for medieval MSS. :) (Also, a confusion between rubrication and gilding the lily couldn't possibly be considered a good idea were the former convention still a going concern. I hope. Rubrication is how a reader finds chapter heads.)

[prettygoodword.livejournal.com]

The dictionaries are maddeningly vague about whether there was reborrowing or not, but it seems the likely explanation.

---L.