Etymology of χρώς ‘surface, skin, color’

The etymology of the s-stem χρώς, χροός m. ‘bodily surface, skin, skin-color, color’ m. (Hom. +) is uncertain. While DELG2 (: 1234) claims that the oblique *k^hroh- reflects a *k^hrowoh- connected to χραύω ‘graze, scrape’, GEW (: 1120–1) and EDG (: 1650–1) agree that the phonological and morphological indeterminacies involved in connecting χρώς with χραύω, χραίνω ‘touch slightly, smear, stain’, or χρῑ́ω ‘touch surface slightly, rub, anoint’ are too great. Semantically, although skin is frequently conceptualized in terms of production from non-human material (principally by cutting away rather than extractive or applicative rubbing, cf. Ved. cárman- ‘skin’, δέρμα ‘id.’), a more direct route to ‘bodily surface’ is conceivable.

This route to another root of the shape *(ǵ)^her- can be identified in light of two criteria: (1) evidence for an s-stem and (2) a root-meaning that could be the basis of an s-stem reflected by χρώς. Both standards are met, with minor modifications, by what is represented as *√ǵ^her- ‘grab, embrace, enclose’ (IEW: 442–443; cf. Ved. hárati ‘takes’).

On the basis of long associated nominal material (χόρτος ‘farm-enclosure, fodder’, Lat. hortus ‘garden’; χορός ‘civic/dancing enclosure’; arguably χόριον ‘membrane that encloses the foetus’) as well as its relatively recent connection with Hittite karii̯e/a-^zi ‘cover, veil, hide’ (Rieken 1999: 74), this root’s meaning is reconstructible as ‘enclose, envelop, cover’. Its form, in light of the long and justifiably associated reflexes of nominals derived from the descriptive *√g^herd^h- ‘surround, gird’ (LIV2: 197; Ved. gr̥há- ‘household’; OCS gradъ ‘town’), seems to have originally been *√g^her-.

Recognition of *√ǵ^her- ‘grab, etc.’ as *√g^her- ‘enclose, envelop, cover’ facilitates the incorporation of new evidence for an s-stem to this root. Though derived by Pokorny from “s-extended” derivatives of *√g^her- ‘rub’ (IEW: 439–440), Russian goróxъ ‘pea’, Serbo-Croatian grȁh ‘bean, pea’, etc. more plausibly reflect a “genitival” *g^hōrsó- ‘in/of/from the covering’, i.e., ‘in a pod’, derived from a *g^hórso- ‘the covering’ (Lith. gar̃šas ‘goutweed’ [< ‘covering of the ground’], cf. OHG gers ‘id.’ [< *g^hérso-]), whose additional genitival derivative appears to have been the preform of Latin horreum ‘storehouse, barn’ (< *g^horsei̯o- ‘kind of enclosure’) and whose adnominal base appears to have been a possessive *gʰr̥só- ‘offering cover’ derived from an s-stem (i.e. *gʰr̥-s-ó- [not *gʰr-so- as in EDL: 290]).

Though, like the external derivative *gʰr̥-s-ó-, the theoretically expectable proterokinetic *g^hér-o/es- ‘covering, enclosure’ is unattested, its internal derivative certainly is. As an amphikinetic (i.e. determined possessive), this *g^hér-os-/g^hr̥-s- meant ‘cover’ in the sense of ‘instance/means of *g^hér-o/es-’ (Nussbaum 2014a and b), on the basis of which it came to mean ‘bodily surface’. The generalization of radical zero-grade and suffixal o-grade resulted in χρώς. Its sense ‘color’ so familiar in its derivatives (χροιά ‘color’, χρῴζω ‘tinge’, etc.) is a development strikingly comparable to the histories of Vedic várṇa- m. ‘color, skin-color’ and Latin color ‘id.’, which are themselves akin to verba tegendi (Ved. vr̥ṇóti ‘covers’, Lat. occulere ‘cover’).