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indigo

UK/ˈɪn.dɪˌɡəʊ/US/ˈɪndɪˌɡoʊ/
adjectiveB1+Rare in speech; mostly a word you read · #11,845 of 15,258leans written

Indigo is a deep blue verging on violet. Indigo dye, indigo blue, dyed indigo.

The dye is what makes denim blue, and it sits on the surface of the thread rather than soaking in, which is why jeans fade where they wear. Newton put it in the rainbow between blue and violet, and most people cannot see it as a separate band at all.

Photo by Evan Izer (Palladian) · CC BY-SA 2.5

Definitions of indigo

  1. 1adjectiveindigoA deep blue verging on violet.B1+

    “The sky turned indigo as the last light faded behind the hills.”

indigo is a colour.

Where it comes from

Spanish indigo comes from Latin indicum, meaning from India, where the dye plant grew.

  1. Ancient Greek

    ἰνδικόν — Indian dye

  2. Latin

    indicum — indigo

  3. Portuguese

    endego

  4. Spanish

    índigo

  5. English, today

    indigo

16th century (as indico, modern spelling from the 17th century), Spanish índigo, Portuguese endego (modern índigo), or Dutch - (via Portuguese -) indigo, all from Latin indicum (“indigo”), from Ancient Greek ἰνδικόν (“Indian dye”), from Ἰνδία. a doublet of Indic.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in Colours & Patterns

Practise this word

indigo in the wild

  • The word "indigo" comes from the Latin word indicum, meaning "Indian", as the naturally based dye was originally exported to Europe from India.

    Indigo

  • The Early Modern English word indigo referred to the dye, not to the color (hue) itself, and indigo is not traditionally part of the basic color-naming system.

    Indigo

  • The idea is based on concepts developed in the 1970s by Nancy Ann Tappe, who wrote that she had been noticing indigo children beginning in the late 1960s.

    Indigo children

  • No scientific studies give credibility to the existence of indigo children or their traits.

    Indigo children

  • Since indigo is insoluble, it is also referred to as a pigment (C.I.

    Indigo dye

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From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.