691: glaucous, glaucoma, and glaucope Oct 29, 2016

If you wanted to describe something, in a word, as a pale yellow, you could of course just say, 'yellowish', but the more pretentious way is with the word, 'glaucous'. The word comes from the Latin, 'glaucous', which means both 'gleaming' but also 'gray', which is why this word, now predominantly used to denote a yellowy color has also sometimes been used to describe any pale color, especially those of leaves in autumn. Yet, perhaps less pretty is that the root, 'glauc-' has given English the word 'glaucoma', as the condition makes the scope of what one sees, over time, become gray. There are plenty more words, though all fairly obscure that have this root as well, including 'glaucope': someone with blond hair and blue eyes.