Art & MusicGreek → English
Chromatic
/kroʊˈmætɪk/adjective
Relating to colour, or in music using notes outside the prevailing scale.
The Greek roots
χρῶμα
chrôma
colour, complexion
Literally: “coloured”
Follow a root:χρῶμα11 words
The story of the word
Greek theory divided the tetrachord into three genera, and the middle one was χρωματικόν, coloured, because its semitones shaded in a frame the diatonic genus left plain. χρῶμα meant colour and also complexion, the surface a thing shows. The modern chromatic scale of twelve semitones inherits a name that was awarded for shading, not for counting, and chromatic aberration in a lens keeps the plain colour sense alive alongside it.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Latin → French → English
- First recorded
- 1590s
The same roots elsewhere
Other languages reached for exactly the same Greek pieces.
Same family
chromechromosomemonochromechromatography
In a sentence
A chromatic run in the left hand gives the whole passage its unease.
Cheap lenses show chromatic fringing at the edge of the frame.