Due to their sky-blue hue, sapphires have always been associated with the heavens, which is why ancient Indians named it sanipriya, meaning "sacred to Saturn" (a particularly karmic planet), from the Sanskrit words Sani, meaning "Saturn", and priyah, meaning "precious". Usage of this word traveled into the Middle East as the Hebrew word sappir, which also referred to lapis lazuli. That went into Ancient Greek as sappheiros (probably not related to the poet Sappho), which was still associated with both gems, and that in turn was picked up by the Romans as the Latin word sapphirus. That diffused into Old French as sapphir and was borrowed into English in the mid-1200s. The adjectival form arose in the 1400s and peak usage was in the late 1800s as sapphires boomed in popularity due to new imports from Kashmir, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, and Madagascar.
0 Comments
Your comment will be posted after it is approved.
Leave a Reply. |
AUTHORHello! I'm Adam Aleksic. I have a linguistics degree from Harvard University, where I co-founded the Harvard Undergraduate Linguistics Society and wrote my thesis on Serbo-Croatian language policy. In addition to etymology, I also really enjoy traveling, trivia, philosophy, board games, conlanging, and art history.
Archives
December 2023
TAGS |