英语词源字典 - 在线词源网站

bureau [bureau 词源字典]: bureau: [17] Etymologically, bureau seems to mean ‘red’. Its ultimate source is probably Greek purrhós ‘red’, a derivative of pur ‘fire’ (as in English pyre and pyrotechnic), which is related to English fire. This was borrowed into Latin as burrus, which developed into Old French bure ‘dark brown’. This seems to have formed the basis of a derivative burel, later bureau, meaning ‘dark brown cloth’.

This cloth was used for covering the writing surface of desks, and so eventually bureau came to mean ‘writing desk’ itself. Offices being the natural habitat of writing desks, bureau was later applied to them too. The derivative bureaucracy is 19th-century, of French origin.
=> pyre, pyrotechnic[bureau etymology, bureau origin, 英语词源]
blackbird (n.): late 15c. (late 13c. as a surname), from black (adj.) + bird (n.1). OED says so called for being the only "black" (really dark brown) bird among the songbirds, reflecting an older sense of bird that did not include rooks, crows, ravens.
brunette (adj.): 1660s, from French brunette (masc. brunet), from Old French brunet "brownish, brown-haired, dark-complexioned," fem. diminutive of brun "brown" (12c.), of West Germanic origin (see brown (adj.)). As a noun, "woman of a dark complexion," from 1710. The metathesized form, Old French burnete, is the source of the surname Burnett. Burnete also was used of a wool-dyed cloth of superior quality, originally dark brown.
bureau (n.): 1690s, "desk with drawers, writing desk," from French bureau "office; desk, writing table," originally "cloth covering for a desk," from burel "coarse woolen cloth" (as a cover for writing desks), Old French diminutive of bure "dark brown cloth," which is perhaps either from Latin burrus "red," or from Late Latin burra "wool, shaggy garment." Offices being full of such desks, the meaning expanded 1720 to "division of a government." Meaning "chest of drawers" is from 1770, said to be American English but early in British use.
Donovan: from Irish Donndubhan "dark brown."
melanin (n.): dark brown or black pigment found in animal bodies, 1832, Modern Latin, with chemical suffix -in (2); first element from Greek melas (genitive melanos) "black," from PIE root *mel- (2) "of darkish color" (cognates: Sanskrit malinah "dirty, stained, black," Lithuanian melynas "blue," Latin mulleus "reddish"). Related: Melanism; melanistic.
mocha (n.): 1733, "fine coffee," from Mocha, Red Sea port of Yemen, from which coffee was exported. Meaning "mixture of coffee and chocolate" first recorded 1849. As a shade of dark brown, it is attested from 1895.
nigger (n.): 1786, earlier neger (1568, Scottish and northern England dialect), from French nègre, from Spanish negro (see Negro). From the earliest usage it was "the term that carries with it all the obloquy and contempt and rejection which whites have inflicted on blacks" [cited in Gowers, 1965, probably Harold R. Isaacs]. But as black inferiority was at one time a near universal assumption in English-speaking lands, the word in some cases could be used without deliberate insult. More sympathetic writers late 18c. and early 19c. seem to have used black (n.) and, after the American Civil War, colored person.
"You're a fool nigger, and the worst day's work Pa ever did was to buy you," said Scarlett slowly. ... There, she thought, I've said "nigger" and Mother wouldn't like that at all. [Margaret Mitchell, "Gone With the Wind," 1936]
Also applied by English settlers to dark-skinned native peoples in India, Australia, Polynesia. The reclamation of the word as a neutral or positive term in black culture (not universally regarded as a worthwhile enterprise), often with a suggestion of "soul" or "style," is attested first in the U.S. South, later (1968) in the Northern, urban-based Black Power movement.

Used in combinations (such as nigger-brown) since 1840s for various dark brown or black hues or objects; euphemistic substitutions (such as Zulu) began to appear in these senses c. 1917. Brazil nuts were called nigger toes by 1896. Variant niggah, attested from 1925 (without the -h, from 1969), is found usually in situations where blacks use the word. Nigra (1944), on the other hand, in certain uses reflects a pronunciation of negro meant to suggest nigger, and is thus deemed (according to a 1960 slang dictionary) "even more derog[atory] than 'nigger.' " Slang phrase nigger in the woodpile attested by 1800; "A mode of accounting for the disappearance of fuel; an unsolved mystery" [R.H. Thornton, "American Glossary," 1912]. Nigger heaven "the top gallery in a (segregated) theater" first attested 1878 in reference to Troy, N.Y.
seal (n.2): fish-eating mammal with flippers, Old English seolh "seal," from Proto-Germanic *selkhaz (compare Old Norse selr, Swedish sjöl, Danish sæl, Middle Low German sel, Middle Dutch seel, Old High German selah), of unknown origin, perhaps a borrowing from Finnic. Seal point "dark brown marking on a Siamese cat" is recorded from 1934, from the dark brown color of seal fur; compare seal brown "rich, dark brown color," by 1875. Old English seolhbæð, literally "seal's bath," was an Anglo-Saxon kenning for "the sea."
taupe (n.): "dark brownish-gray color" (the color of moleskin), 1906, from French taupe, the color, originally "a mole," Old French, from Latin talpa "a mole." The story below lacks evidence appears to be a fanciful attempt to divert the origin of the color name to something more appealing:
Before the season advances very far you will find that taupe, pronounced "tope," will be the most favored color in the entire category of shades and blendings. The original word is taken from the German word "taube" pronounced "tob-a," which is the name for the dove, but the French have twisted the b into a p and give us taupe. ["The Illustrated Milliner," August, 1906]
tawny (adj.): "tan-colored," late 14c., from Anglo-French tauné "of or like the brownish-yellow of tanned leather," from Old French tanét "dark brown, tan" (12c., Modern French tanné), past participle of taner "to tan hides," from Medieval Latin tannare (see tan (v.)).Related: Tawniness.
maran: "A French breed of domestic fowl that lays large dark brown eggs; a fowl of this breed", 1930s. From French (race de) Marans from Marans, the name of a town in the department of Charente-Maritime in western France.