Disputatio:Iazium

E Vicipaedia

[recensere] Cur Anglice blues = Latine glaucum?

Three problems:

1. Glaucus, -a, -um is more like 'gray, grayish, gray-blue'.
2. Modern Latin words for varieties of 'blue' include azureus, caeruleus, caesius, cyaneus, cobaltinus, lazulinus, venetus. According to the way the OED sorts the senses & examples of the term (in English), the bluishness here is a generic bluishness, perhaps akin to Oxford blue and the blue imagined in the phrase true blue. Those aren't likely to be glaucus in Latin.
3. English blues is a plural word, and it has a genuine singular (blue) ; accordingly, the Latin for blues could better be plural.

Perhaps the connotations of the Latin adjective lividus 'blackish blue, black-and-blue', are not irrelevant here. IacobusAmor 19:58, 17 Februarii 2007 (UTC)