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chained_bear commented on the word uchimillia
"In February 1543, an enterprising silk merchant and a distinguished citizen presented three samples of cochineal to the Venetian silk guild. Each sample had a different name--uchimillia, cochimeia, and panucho--possibly indicating slight variations in the place of origin. It was also true, however, that in 1543 cochineal was too new a commodity in Europe to have a settled name. Only later in the century would the term for the dyestuff be firmly established as grana cochinilla, or cochineal.*
* The exact origins of the term cochinilla remain a mystery. One 16th-century Spaniard suggested that it was derived from the Latin word coccus, meaning 'scarlet dye'; other scholars have speculated that it comes from the Latin coccineus, meaning 'scarlet-colored.' In Spanish, cochinilla literally means 'little pig,' and the term is applied not only to cochineal itself but to a crustacean that cochineal resembles, the woodlouse."
Amy Butler Greenfield, A Perfect Red: Empire, Espionage, and the Quest for the Color of Desire (New York: Harper Collins, 2005), 74.
October 5, 2017