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Yellow is a colour that lies between orange and green on the visible light spectrum and has a wavelength of 570 nm to 590 nm. The word “yellow” does not come from ‘gu10’ but from the Old English ‘geolu’ which derived from ‘gelwaz’, a Proto-Germanic word. The oldest known use of this word in the English language dates to the year 700 where it was included in The Epinal Glossary.

Yellow does not have fantastic connotations in the English language, mostly being associated with jaundice, cowardice, and ageing. In Italy, yellow, ‘giallo’, refers to fictional or non-fictional crime stories as the first series of crime novels published in the country bore yellow covers. In China, ‘yellow movie’ is synonymous to the English ‘blue movie’, meaning a film of a pornographic nature. Yellow journalism refers to sensational journalistic practices also. In nature, carotenoids are the organic pigments which give many objects their yellow colouring such as autumn leaves and egg yolks.