Bice

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A blue or green pigment made from a basic copper carbonate, historically used in paints and dyes
2. A colorant derived from copper compounds, appearing as either a blue or greenish shade and employed in painting and dyeing
3. A pigment of blue or green hue produced from copper ore, traditionally mixed into paints and textile dyes

Etymology: Before it named a shade of pale brown, "bice" was a pigment-colour term borrowed from French "bis," meaning dark or dusky grey. Its Italian relative "bigio" carried the same sense of light grey or tawny, and the two words share a common ancestry in that greyish-brown colour family. The surprising connection is that "bice" and "beige" are doublets: two English words descended from the same source that entered the language by different routes and ended up with different forms and senses. Because "beige" came in through another path and took on the broader meaning of a pale, undyed sandy-brown, "bice" stayed narrower, lingering as a term for a specific tone of blue-grey or greenish pigment used in painting.

Synonyms: pigment