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yellow: yellow: [OE] Yellow is a member of an ancient and widespread family of European colourterms descended from Indo-European *ghel-, *ghol-, which denoted both ‘yellow’ and ‘green’. From it were descended Latin helvus ‘yellowish’ and possibly galbus ‘greenishyellow’ (source of French jaune ‘yellow’ and English jaundice), Greek kholé ‘bile’ (source of English choleric, melancholy, etc), Russian zheltyj ‘yellow’, Lithuanian geltonas ‘yellow’, and English gall and gold.

In the Germanic languages it has produced German gelb, Dutch gel, Swedish and Danish gul, and English yellow. A yolk [OE] is etymologically a ‘yellow’ substance.
=> choleric, gall, gold, jaundice, melancholy, yolk
yellow (adj.): Old English geolu, geolwe, "yellow," from Proto-Germanic *gelwaz (cognates: Old Saxon, Old High German gelo, Middle Dutch ghele, Dutch geel, Middle High German gel, German gelb, Old Norse gulr, Swedish gul "yellow"), from PIE *ghel- (2) "to shine," with derivatives referring to bright materials and gold (see glass). For other Indo-European "yellow" words, see Chloe.

Occasionally in Middle English used of a color closer to blue-gray or gray, of frogs or hazel eyes, and to translate Latin caeruleus, glauco. Also as a noun in Old English. Meaning "light-skinned" (of blacks) first recorded 1808. Applied to Asiatics since 1787, though the first recorded reference is to Turkish words for inhabitants of India. Yellow peril translates German die gelbe gefahr. Sense of "cowardly" is 1856, of unknown origin; the color was traditionally associated rather with jealousy and envy (17c.). Yellow-bellied "cowardly" is from 1924, probably a semi-rhyming reduplication of yellow; earlier yellow-belly was a sailor's name for a half-caste (1867) and a Texas term for Mexican soldiers (1842, based on the color of their uniforms). Yellow dog "mongrel" is attested from c. 1770; slang sense of "contemptible person" first recorded 1881. Yellow fever attested from 1748, American English (jaundice is a symptom).
yellow (v.): Old English geoluwian "to become yellow," from the source of yellow (adj.). Transitive sense from 1590s. Related: Yellowed; yellowing.
yellow journalism: "sensational chauvinism in the media," 1898, American English, from newspaper agitation for war with Spain; originally "publicity stunt use of colored ink" (1895) in reference to the popular Yellow Kid" character (his clothes were yellow) in Richard Outcault's comic strip "Shantytown" in the "New York World."
yellow ribbon: The American folk custom of wearing or displaying a yellow ribbon to signify solidarity with loved ones or fellow citizens at war originated during the U.S. embassy hostage crisis in Iran in 1979. It does not have a connection to the American Civil War, beyond the use of the old British folk song "Round Her Neck She Wore A Yellow Ribbon" in the John Wayne movie of the same name, with a Civil War setting, released in 1949. The story of a ribbon tied to a tree as a signal to a convict returning home that his loved ones have forgiven him is attested from 1959, but the ribbon in that case was white.

The ribbon color seems to have changed to yellow first in a version retold by newspaper columnist Pete Hamill in 1971. The story was dramatized in June 1972 on ABC-TV (James Earl Jones played the ex-con). Later that year, Irwin Levine and L. Russell Brown copyrighted the song "Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Ole Oak Tree," which became a pop hit in early 1973 and sparked a lawsuit by Hamill, later dropped.

In 1975, the wife of a Watergate conspirator put out yellow ribbons when her husband was released from jail, and news coverage of that was noted and remembered by Penne Laingen, whose husband was U.S. ambassador to Iran in 1979 and one of the Iran hostages taken in the embassy on Nov. 4. Her yellow ribbon in his honor was written up in the Dec. 10, 1979, "Washington Post." When the hostage families organized as the Family Liaison Action Group (FLAG), they took the yellow ribbon as their symbol. The ribbons revived in the 1991 Gulf War and again during the 2000s wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
yellowcake (n.): oxide of uranium, 1950, from yellow (adj.) + cake (n.).
yellowtail (n.): type of fish, 1709, from yellow (adj.) + tail (n.).
yellowy (adj.): 1660s, from yellow (n.) + -y (2).