bluestockingyoudaoicibaDictYouDict[bluestocking 词源字典]
bluestocking: [18] The term bluestocking ‘female intellectual’ derives from the gatherings held at the houses of fashionable mid-18th- century hostesses to discuss literary and related topics. It became the custom at these not to put on full formal dress, which for gentlemen included black silk stockings. One habitué in particular, Mr Benjamin Stillingfleet, used to wear greyish worsted stockings, conventionally called ‘blue’.

This lack of decorum was looked on with scorn in some quarters, and Admiral Boscawan dubbed the participants the ‘Blue Stocking Society’. Women who attended their highbrow meetings thus became known as ‘Blue Stocking Ladies’ (even though it was a man who had worn the stockings), and towards the end of the century this was abbreviated to simply bluestockings.

[bluestocking etymology, bluestocking origin, 英语词源]
dunyoudaoicibaDictYouDict
dun: English has two words dun. The colour adjective, ‘greyish brown’ [OE], comes ultimately from Indo-European *donnos, *dusnos, which is also the source of English dusk. The now rather dated noun, ‘debtcollector’ [17], is an abbreviation of dunkirk, a 17th-century term for a ‘privateer’, a privately owned vessel officially allowed to attack enemy shipping during wartime.

It was originally applied from such privateers that sailed from the port of Dunkirk, on the northern coast of France, to attack British ships, and its connotations of unwarranted piracy soon spread metaphorically to one who was constantly importuning for the repayment of his loan.

=> donkey, dusk, obfuscate
hoaryoudaoicibaDictYouDict
hoar: [OE] Hoar now survives mainly in hoary, a disparaging term for ‘old’, and hoarfrost, literally ‘white frost’. Between them, they encapsulate the meaning of hoar – ‘greyishwhite haired with age’. But it is the colour that is historically primary, not the age. The word goes back to an Indo-European *koi-, whose other descendants include German heiter ‘bright’ and Russian ser’iy ‘grey’.

Another Germanic offshoot was *khairaz – but here the association between ‘grey hair’ and ‘age, venerability’ began to cloud the issue. For while English took the word purely as a colour term, German and Dutch have turned it into a title of respect, originally for an elderly man, now for any man: herr and mijnheer respectively.

=> hare, herring
IsabelyoudaoicibaDictYouDict
fem. proper name, a form of Elizabeth that seems to have developed in Provence. A popular name in Middle Ages; pet forms included Ibb, Libbe, Nibb, Tibb, Bibby, and Ellice. The Spanish form was Isabella, which is attested as a color name ("greyish-yellow") from 1600; the Isabella who gave her name to it has not been identified. Related: Isabelline.
phaeophorbideyoudaoicibaDictYouDict
"A greyish-green compound formed by the degradation of chlorophyll or phaeophytin (e.g. by strong acid or by enzymes), having the structure of phaeophytin with the phytyl group replaced by a hydrogen atom; (more fully phaeophorbide a, phaeophorbide b) either of two forms of this, derived from chlorophyll a and chlorophyll b respectively", Early 20th cent.; earliest use found in Chemical Abstracts. From German Phäophorbid from ancient Greek ϕαιός grey + ϕορβή pasture, food + German -id.