Comment by carlosjobim
9 hours ago
> Moreover, in ancient languages there were very few words that designed just a color, with no other meaning for the word, but it was very frequent to use words derived from the names of various things, which meant "of the color of the X thing".
Isn't this how things are still today? For example "orange".
Apparently the color name did come from the fruit, and therefore didn’t enter common use in English until around the 16th century.
> Isn't this how things are still today? For example "orange".
Well, it's true that that's how we got the color term "orange".
It's not true that words that refer specifically to a color, as opposed to metaphorically referring to the color of the noun that is the primary meaning of the word, are rare. They're not rare in modern languages, and they also aren't rare in ancient languages. Your parent comment is mistaken.
Compare e.g. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Germanic... [only meaning: "red"], but note that this is normal.