puce: [18] Puce is etymologically ‘fleacoloured’. It was borrowed from French puce ‘flea’, a descendant of Latin pūlex ‘flea’, which goes back to the same Indo-European source as English flea [OE]. => flea
puce (n.)
"brownish-purple," 1787, from French puce "flea-color; flea," from Latin pucilem (nominative pulex) "flea," from PIE *plou- "flea" (cognates: Sanskrit plusih, Greek psylla, Old Church Slavonic blucha, Lithuanian blusa, Armenian lu "flea"). That it could be generally recognized as a color seems a testimony to our ancestors' intimacy with vermin.
