flavus

• IPA^(key): /ˈflavus/
• Rhymes: -avus
• Syllabification: fla‧vus

flavus

1. conditional of flavi

Uncertain. Perhaps from Proto-Italic *flāwos. The term is often compared with Proto-Germanic *blēwaz and Proto-Celtic *blāwos, though it is difficult to reconstruct a single pre-form underlying all of these terms. De Vaan suggests that, should the Germanic and Celtic comparison be rejected, it is possible the reconstruct a pre-form *bʰl̥h₁wós. Alternatively, Schrijver suggests a connection with flōs, perhaps indicating a pre-form *bʰleh₃-wo-, which could explain the Germanic and Celtic forms if a delabialization of *bʰleh₃- to *bʰleh_1/2- is presumed. Such a development is, however, highly speculative.^[1] Kroonen argues that the Germanic and Italo-Celtic forms may be unified under a single ablauting PIE u-stem *bʰléh₁-us ~ *bʰl̥h₁-wόs.^[2] However, Matasović suggests that the only possible means of connecting the Germanic to the Italo-Celtic terms would be to posit a vrddhi form *bʰlēh₂wo-, which he considers to be an ad hoc and speculative assertion.^[3]

• (Classical Latin) IPA^(key): [ˈfɫaː.wʊs]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): [ˈflaː.vus]

flāvus (feminine flāva, neuter flāvum, comparative flāvior, superlative flāvissimus); first/second-declension adjective

1. blond^[4]
2. (usually poetic) the color or passionate impression of gold, of wheat, of sand, etc. that evokes "blond": yellow, fair
3. (of skin) blushing, red (because it is more colored than white)
4. (of eyes) denotes some kind of eye color that is neither caesius (“blue”) nor rāvus (“gray”): amber or a similar hazel

• As a color term, flāvus was considered a subset of rūfus. The light mixture it signified could have spectral power distribution that leaned toward medium (greenish) or longer (reddish) wavelengths, or could be less saturated (whitish). Marcus Fronto described the color term as ē viridī et rūfō et albō concrētus. See also fulvus.
• In the Augustan period, the word for a simple bright yellow that was used prosaically to describe flower parts and to speak of jaundice was often lūteus.

First/second-declension adjective.

• “flavus”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “flavus”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891), An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• "flavus", in Charles du Fresne du Cange, Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition with additions by D. P. Carpenterius, Adelungius and others, edited by Léopold Favre, 1883–1887)
• “flavus”, in Gaffiot, Félix (1934), Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.
• “flavus”, in Harry Thurston Peck, editor (1898), Harper’s Dictionary of Classical Antiquities, New York: Harper & Brothers
• “flavus”, in William Smith, editor (1848), A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, London: John Murray
• Pokorny, Julius (1959), “bhlē-ṷo-s”, in Indogermanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch [Indo-European Etymological Dictionary] (in German), volume 1, Bern, München: Francke Verlag, page 160