Q: Borrowing of French <marron>

[X99Lynx at AOL.COM]

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
In a message dated 5/21/03 6:24:21 PM, larryt at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK writes:
<< The French word <marron>, 'chestnut' and later 'brown', is first attested
as a color term only in 1824, in Balzac (I am told).>>

A quick note: <maroon> ('marones') appears as a color word in English in 1791
in a translation of Claude-Louis Berthollet’s "Elements de l’art de la
teinture", a highly influential and often revised and reprinted scientific
treatise on commercial dyeing - an industry that would have significant
economic and cultural importance in the 19th Century.  Also, in the same
translation, a "light marrone" is compared to cinnamon, consistent with
"maroon" generally and rather consistently being used in English to refer to
a dark or drab red hue, not a brown. (E.g., Pantone Process Maroon #208).  I
realize this was not the question, but this would give some indication that
the word <marron> was already in use in reference to a dye -- if not an
abstract color -- in French before Balzac.  And possibly that it referred to a
n attempt to scientifically or commercially standardize a particular fabric
dye name early on.  And also that this color itself was not equivalent to a
modern color wheel "brown."  And finally, at least in its first mention in
English given in the OED (1594), "marrons" are mentioned in distinction to
chestnuts.

Steve Long