| 词汇 | cochineal |
| 词根词缀 | 词源： 1580s, from Fr. cochenille, from Sp. cochinilla "wood louse," or It. cocciniglia, from Mod.L. coccinum "scarlet robe," coccineus "scarlet-colored," from coccum "scarlet," lit. "grain, berry." Coccum is cognate with Gk. kokkos, which had the same senses. The crushed insect dye was once wrongly supposed to be from the grain or berry of a plant. The insect lives on plants in Mexico and Central America. Aztecs and other Mexican Indians used it as a dyestuff; it first is mentioned in Europe in 1523 in Sp. correspondence to Hernán Cortés in Mexico. Specimens were brought to Spain in the 1520s, and cloth merchants in Antwerp were buying cochineal in insect and powdered form in Spain by the 1540s. Replaced the kermes insect as a source of red dye in Europe. So important was this source of scarlet dye that derivatives of the name for it have displaced the original word for "red" in many languages, e.g. Welsh coch, Mod.Gk. kokkinos. Cf. also crimson, vermilion. |
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