Thursday, February 24, 2011

Word of the day: citrine

The word of the day is citrine:

French citrin, < Latin type *citrīn-us, < citrus. Compare Italian citrino, etc.

   Having the light yellow or greenish-yellow colour of a lemon or citron; lemon-coloured. (OED)


"In my Penguin English library edition, I marked what seemed to me particularly salient passages with a fluorescent yellow pen; the highlights have faded now to an almost imperceptible citrine."

 - Rebecca Mead, "Middlemarch and Me: What George Eliot teaches us", February 14 & 21, 2011, The New Yorker

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