Words related to shade
Proto-Indo-European root meaning "dark, shade."
It forms all or part of: nightshade; scotoma; shade; shadow; shady.
It is the hypothetical source of/evidence for its existence is provided by: Greek skotos "darkness, gloom;" Albanian kot "darkness;" Old Irish scath, Old Welsh scod, Breton squeut "darkness," Gaelic sgath "shade, shadow, shelter;" Old English scead "partial darkness," sceadu "shade, shadow, darkness," Dutch schaduw, German Schatten, Gothic skadus "shadow."
"slight or delicate degree of difference in expression, feeling, opinion, etc.," 1781, from French nuance "slight difference, shade of color" (17c.), from nuer "to shade," from nue "cloud," from Gallo-Roman *nuba, from Latin nubes "a cloud, mist, vapor," from PIE *sneudh- "fog" (source also of Avestan snaoda "clouds," Latin obnubere "to veil," Welsh nudd "fog," Greek nython, in Hesychius "dark, dusky").
According to Klein, the French secondary sense is a reference to "the different colors of the clouds." In reference to color or tone, "a slight variation in shade," by 1852; of music, by 1841 as a French term in English.
"plant of the genus solanum," with white flowers and black poisonous berries, Middle English night-shade, from Old English nihtscada, literally "shade of night," perhaps in allusion to the berries; see night + shade (n.). A common Germanic compound, cognates: Dutch nachtschade, German Nachtschatten.
"sunglasses," 1958, American English, colloquial, plural of shade (n.). Shade as "eyeshade" is from 1801.
Middle English shadwe, from Old English sceadwe, sceaduwe "shade, the effect of interception of sunlight; dark image cast by someone or something when interposed between an object and a source of light," oblique cases ("to the," "from the," "of the," "in the") of sceadu (see shade (n.)). Shadow is to shade (n.) as meadow is to mead (n.2). Similar formation in Old Saxon skado, Middle Dutch schaeduwe, Dutch schaduw, Old High German scato, German schatten, Gothic skadus "shadow, shade."
From mid-13c. as "darkened area created by shadows, shade." From early 13c. in sense "anything unreal;" mid-14c. as "a ghost." Many senses are from the notion of "that which follows or attends a person." From late 14c. as "a foreshadowing, prefiguration." Meaning "imitation, copy" is from 1690s. Sense of "the faintest trace" is from 1580s; that of "a spy who follows" is from 1859. Many of the modern English senses also were in Latin umbra, Greek skia, along with that of "uninvited guest who an invited one brings with him."
As a designation of members of an opposition party chosen as counterparts of the government in power, it is recorded from 1906. Shadow of Death (c. 1200) translates Vulgate umbra mortis (Psalms xxiii.4, etc.), which translates Greek skia thanatou, itself perhaps a mistranslation of a Hebrew word for "intense darkness." In "Beowulf," Grendel is a sceadugenga, a shadow-goer, and another word for "darkness" is sceaduhelm. To be afraid of one's (own) shadow "be very timorous" is from 1580s.
1570s, "affording or abounding with shade;" 1590s, "protected by shade, sheltered from glare or heat;" from shade (n.) + -y (2).
The meaning "disreputable" (1862) might be from or reinforced by the earlier university-slang sense of "of questionable merit, unreliable" (1848, perhaps on the notion of "such as cannot bear the light"). Related: Shadily; shadiness. Old English had sceadlic "shady" ('shadely'); the Elizabethans also had shadeful. Colloquial on the shady side of "older than" (a specified age) is by 1808.
"building for storage," 1855, earlier "light, temporary shelter" (late 15c., Caxton, shadde), possibly a dialectal variant of a specialized use of shade (n.). Originally of the barest sort of shelter. Or from or influenced in sense development by Middle English shudde (shud) "a shed, hut," which survives, if at all, in dialect, from Old English OE scydd.
