Red Hot

You can see where the name came from.

Yesterday at work I was working with some yarn--Patons Allure, if you must know--and I noticed that one of the colours, all named after gemstones and rare things, was Garnet, which in French is Grenat. It's interesting to find a word in one language that's an anagram of the same word in another language, but what really grabbed me was the shape of the French word: "Aha", I said to myself, "that has got to be from the same root as 'grenadine' and 'pomegranate', and therefore 'garnet' must be related to them also."

And so it is.

"Pomegranate" is from Old French "pome", meaning "apple" (the modern French word is "pomme", and has left traces in English as "pomade" and "pomander"), and "grenate", "multi-seeded", akin to "grain" and "granular"; a pomegranate was considered a sort of apple with many seeds inside. (I have never heard "pomegranate" pronounced any way but "POM-uh-gran-ut" in North America, but it's generally, maybe always, "POM-gran-ut" in England. Answers.com lists this English pronunciation first, which generally means it's the most common or at least the preferred pronunciation: but is it really pronounced that way in this country, or on this continent? Ever? Maybe it is, but as I say, I've never heard it.)

"Grenadine"--the family resemblance is obvious--is a flavouring syrup made of pomegranates. "Grenat" came in French to mean "pomegranate-red", a good description of the colour of a garnet. And an alternate spelling of "grenat" in Old French, "gernat", is what was alchemized into the English word "garnet".