How many reds?
Peter Childs, University of Limerick, investigates words in chemistry.
As we have seen before, the English language is rich with words for various colours, and often these words have a chemical connection. In this Chemlingo we will look at words for red.
A bright red pigment used for centuries was vermilion, used for example in illuminated manuscripts, which we also use as a word for that shade of red. The pigment is obtained from the mineral cinnabar, which is mercury(II) sulfide, HgS. Vermilion is often called china red and most of the natural cinnabar comes from China.
The name vermilion comes from old French vermeil, meaning bright red, which in turn derives from the Latin vermiculus, meaning little worm. How come?
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