Word of the Day: May 2, 2009 ~ emerald

emerald (em-er-uhld) - noun

An emerald is "a rare variety of beryl that is colored green by chromium and valued as a gem."

Emerald is the birthstone for the month of May.

Originally used in the written form around 1250-1300. Emerald traces its history back to the ancient Semitic verb 'shine' - baraq. From this there seems to have been formed a noun baraqt meaning, "gem." This was taken over into the ancient vernacular languages of India (main source of gems in early times) as maragada-.  Greek acquired the word as maragdos, meaning "green gem," which soon superseded as the main form by a variant smaragdos.  Latin adopted this as smaragdus (which passed into English, probably via Old French, as smaragd, a term used for the 'emerald' from the 13th to the 18th century, and revived as an archaism in the 19th century).  In post-classical times, Latin smaragdus became smaralda, and as this became disseminated through the Romance languages it acquired in many cases an additional syllable: Spanish esmeralda, for instance (source of the English forename) and Old French esmeraude, borrowed into Middle English as emeraud.

Photo by Akuppa