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I have been wondering why 色々 meant "various". I reckon that the archaic
"various colours" meaning (as listed on
[Jisho](https://jisho.org/word/%E8%89%B2%E3%80%85)) generalized to "various",
but I wonder why (or how, or when) 色々 specifically, from all other repeated
kanji pairs which could have meant "various (something)", evolved that way.

I'm not as much searching for an answer as looking for reference on this,
which I could not find in English (and my level in Japanese is far from enough
to do a proper search), as well as Japanese etymology in general.
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2022-12-17T23:44:52.367
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question
etymology
Why does 色々 mean "various"?
My go-to dictionary for Japanese word derivations is the 日本国語大辞典【にほんこくごだいじてん】
or NKD. Their entry for 色色【いろいろ】 is available [here at
Kotobank](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E8%89%B2%E8%89%B2-436668).

According to the details available there:

  * 色色 first appears in the [万葉集【まんようしゅう】](https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E4%B8%87%E8%91%89%E9%9B%86) or [_Man'yōshū_](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man%27y%C5%8Dsh%C5%AB) poetry collection, finished some time around 759. The original meaning was just as you suppose: basically _" colorful, having lots of colors"_.

  * The _" various"_ meaning appears later in [竹取物語【たけとりものがたり】](https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E7%AB%B9%E5%8F%96%E7%89%A9%E8%AA%9E) or [_The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter_](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tale_of_the_Bamboo_Cutter), dating to the late 800s or early 900s.

Just in terms of semantic (meaning) development, the shift from singular 色【いろ】
_" of one color"_ to reduplicated 色色【いろいろ】 _" colorful, having various
colors"_ is pretty straightforward. The further shift to _" having various
qualities"_ is also not that far to go.

Please comment if the above does not fully address your question.
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2022-12-18T00:05:58.453
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