Gole

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. An archaic word for the bright color of egg yolks, gold, or ripe lemons, used in older English writing
2. Describing something colored yellow, a usage now found mainly in historical and literary texts from earlier centuries
3. An obsolete adjective meaning yellow, which appears in medieval English and early modern poetry and records

Etymology: Before English had "yellow," it had "geolu," and the Middle English descendant of that word was "gole." It is native to English, not borrowed, and it survived in poetry and dialect long after everyday speech had replaced it with words formed on the same stem. The "yolk" of an egg takes its name from the same root, from the Old English diminutive "geolca," "little yellow thing." The stem reaches even further back. "Gold" and "yellow" are cousins, both descended from a prehistoric Germanic base meaning yellow or bright, and the same root appears in Dutch "geel" and German "gelb." The colour word and the metal were once closely linked by the same ancient idea of brightness. Medieval writers who reached for "gole" were therefore using a word that shared a root with the precious metal they also loved to describe.