Etymology
"Gold" is cognate with similar words in many Germanic languages, deriving via Proto-Germanic *gulþ from Proto-Indo-European *ghel ("yellow/green").
The symbol Au is from the Latin: aurum, according to some sources meaning "shining dawn", from Sabine ausum "glowing dawn" although according to definitions within Latin dictionaries the meaning of the word aurum extends only to the same as today's reference to the metal. The disagreement between definitions is possibly due to the accumulation of evidence from archaeology of the original anciency of the metal in civilization; in reference to "the dawn of civilization", and in this respect has become the adopted modern meaning, disassociated from the original etymological Latin.
Read more about this topic: Gold Compounds
Famous quotes containing the word etymology:
“The universal principle of etymology in all languages: words are carried over from bodies and from the properties of bodies to express the things of the mind and spirit. The order of ideas must follow the order of things.”
—Giambattista Vico (1688–1744)
“Semantically, taste is rich and confusing, its etymology as odd and interesting as that of “style.” But while style—deriving from the stylus or pointed rod which Roman scribes used to make marks on wax tablets—suggests activity, taste is more passive.... Etymologically, the word we use derives from the Old French, meaning touch or feel, a sense that is preserved in the current Italian word for a keyboard, tastiera.”
—Stephen Bayley, British historian, art critic. “Taste: The Story of an Idea,” Taste: The Secret Meaning of Things, Random House (1991)