2544: glass Nov 30, 2021

Although 'glass' refers to a material in English, throughout Indo-European languages the root of this word often led to other meanings for a variety of colors. The reconstructed Proto-Indo-European root *ghel- meant 'shine' and as a result eventually came to mean 'glass' in Germanic languages, but also led to words for the colors yellow such as Old English 'glær' or Latin 'glaesum' (amber) or indeed Modern English 'yellow'. In Old Irish 'glass' meant 'green' and in Welsh 'glas' means 'blue'.