Citril

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A small yellow-green songbird of the finch family that lives in the mountain forests of Europe
2. A small finch with olive and yellow plumage found in the upland coniferous woods of central and southern Europe
3. Serinus citrinella, a little finch native to European mountains, known for its greenish-yellow coloring and its warbling song

Etymology: The citril is a small finch of the mountains of southern and central Europe, and its name refers to its colour. The bird's yellow-green plumage was compared to the pale yellow of a lemon, and the name comes from the same Latin root as "citrus," the fruit genus. The Latin adjective "citrinus" meant lemon-yellow, and it passed into Italian as "citrino," and from there the bird's name was borrowed into French and English. The shared root also links the bird to "citrine," the yellow quartz gemstone, which took its name from the same colour sense. Here the chain runs from fruit to colour to bird and mineral, with the colour as the thread connecting them.