Yellows

[Plural of YELLOW sb., used in specific senses.]

  I.  1. Jaundice, chiefly in horses and cattle.

1561.  Norwich Depos. (1905), 65. The horse had a disease running through him which was called the yellows.

1585.  Higins, Junius’ Nomencl., 454/1. Arquatus,… that hath the yellowes, or the iaunders.

1596.  Shaks., Tam. Shr., III. ii. 54. His horse … raied with the Yellowes.

1607.  Merry Devil Edmonton, V. ii. 16. If I doe not indite him at the next assisses for Burglary, let me die of the yellowes.

1616.  Surfl. & Markh., Country Farm, 147. For a Horse that is troubled with the Yellowes, you shall first let him bloud.

1733.  W. Ellis, Chiltern & Vale Farm., 220. This is apt to gripe them, and bring on the Yellows.

1799.  A. Young, Agric. Linc., 377. They lose many lambs of the yellows, from August to the middle of September.

1805.  R. W. Dickson, Pract. Agric., II. 1133. The Yellows, which is a disease to which cows are very subject.

1871.  Napheys, Prev. & Cure Dis., III. ix. 995. Jaundice is also known under the name of the yellows.

  † 2.  fig. Jealousy: see YELLOW a. 2. Obs.

1601.  B. Jonson, Ev. Man in Hum. (Qo.), V. i. You haue a spice of the yealous yet both of you, (in your hose I meane).

1638.  Ford, Fancies, II. ii. Troy. Yet is this Batchelor miracle not free From the epidemical head-ach. Liv. The Yellowes. Troy. Huge jealous fits.

1638.  Brathwait, Barnabees Jrnl., F ij. Alwayes frolick, free from yellows.

  3.  a. A disease of wheat: see quots. 1771, 1815. b. A disease of peach-trees, in which many sterile shoots are produced and the leaves turn yellow (= peach-yellows: see PEACH sb.¹ 6).

1771.  Gullet, in Phil. Trans., LXII. 350. What the farmers call the yellows in wheat,… occasioned by a small yellow fly with blue wings, about the size of a gnat.

1815.  Farmer’s Mag., 385. The yellows in wheat is a small grub that eats the corn out of the ear before it is ripe.

1848.  Lowell, Biglow P., I. 111. ’Fore they think on ’t they will sprout (Like a peach thet’s got the yellers), With the meanness bustin’ out.

1897.  L. H. Bailey, Fruit-growing, 45. In New York the failure [of peach-growing] is often attributed to yellows.

  II.  4. Name for certain plants yielding a yellow dye, as Genista tinctoria and Reseda Luteola; also dial. for certain plants with yellow flowers, as the wild mustard, Sinapis arvensis, and the wild cabbage, Brassica campestris.

1601.  Holland, Pliny, XXXIII. v. II. 471. An hearb called likewise Lutea. marg., Some take it to be weld or yellows.

1638.  Ford, Fancies, V. ii. Burnish my forehead with the juyce of yellowes.

1790.  W. Marshall, Rural Econ. Midl. Co. (1796), II. Gloss. (E.D.S.), Yellows, dyers’ broom.

  5.  A miner’s term for yellow copper ore occurring in tin mines.

1859.  R. Hunt, Guide Mus. Pract. Geol. (ed. 2), 122. Several tin mines were abandoned when the miners came to the ‘yellows’; this was the yellow copper ore, and their saying was that the ‘yellows cut out the tin.’