- russet (n.)
- mid-13c., "cloth of reddish-brown color" (sense of the color itself is first recorded early 15c.), from Old French rousset, from rosset (adj.) "reddish," diminutive of ros, rous "red," from Latin russus, which is related to ruber "red," from PIE *reudh- "red" (see red). As a color name, attested from 1530s. The word was first applied to a type of apples 1620s, to a type of pears 1725.