'.: 



APPENDIX 



ON THE 



ETYMOLOGY OF THE WORDS CROCUS AND SAFFRON. 



By C. C. Lacaita, M.A., M.P., F.L.S. 



, « .. « .g&^ 



The two names 'Crocus and Saffron,' with their cognate forms, are of such antiquity, 

 and of such wide distribution, as to merit some inquiry into their history, which, in 

 the case of ' Crocus ' at least, is very obscure. 



From Great Britain to the farthest parts of India, one or other of these names, 

 and often both, are used to signify the plant Crocus sativus, L., and the Saffron 

 obtained from it. Usually they are employed for plant and drug indiscriminately ; 

 in England at present there seems to be a tendency to confine ' Saffron ' to the 

 drug and ' Crocus ' to the plant. 



In the dead languages 'Crocus' and its allied forms alone occur; modern 

 Eastern languages usually possess both, but 'Saffron,' of Arabic origin, is more 

 usually and widely employed ; in modern European languages ' Saffron ' has almost 

 altogether supplanted ' Crocus,' except in Gaelic and English. Even in England 

 ' Crocus/ borrowed immediately from the Latin, has only become of common use 

 as a gardener's word, from the universal cultivation of various species as ornamental 

 flowers. In older English 'Saffron' was the common name both of plant and drug, 

 ' Crocus ' being only a literary word. As such it is used by Milton ; and Holinshed,* 

 in his account of the cultivation of Saffron in England, speaks of " the young a en - 

 tleman Crocus " of Ovid's Metamorphoses. Holinshed was acquainted with & the 

 source from which both 'Crocus' and 'Saffron' come; he says, "the whole herbe 

 is named in Greeke crocos : yet in the Arabian speech (from whence we borrow the 

 name we give thereunto) I find that it is called Zahafaran." In the same passage 

 he speaks of "our crokers or saffron men." Professor Skeat thinks that this curious 

 word is probably an abridgment for ' Crocusers.' 



The word 'Saffron' offers no difficulty. With slight modifications it is found in 

 all, or almost all European and in several Oriental languages, always with the same 

 meaning, viz., the plant Crocus sativus, or the dyestuff made from the plant. In all 



* Eng/a?id, iii, S. 



