grass

Before it was a carpet for parks and picnics, grass was just a tiny green sprout with an ancient pedigree. Old English græs and gærs came down from Proto-Germanic *grasan, and deeper still from a PIE idea meaning a young shoot or something that is simply growing up out of the earth. That family is the same old green crowd that gives us grow, green, and grain, which is why a lawn and a wheatfield feel like cousins at the same family reunion. The word even picked up odd little side-shows: Central Park had people being told to keep off the grass in 1843, and by 1932 American English had turned grass into slang for marijuana. Meanwhile, words that look nearby can be tricksters — cress is from a devouring root, and meadow is from mowing — so grass is the one that really stayed closest to the color of spring itself.