Broadway and Times Square, New York City, at night
8 March 2024
Neon is a chemical element, a noble gas, with atomic number 10 and the symbol Ne. It was discovered in 1898 by William Ramsay and Morris W. Travers, who named it after the Greek νέον (new). Neon has a small number of applications, the most well known of which is, of course, in lighting and signage because it emits a distinctive reddish-orange glow when an electrical current is applied to it.
The word is also used as an adjective to describe something that brightly or gaudily colored. We see this adjectival use as early as 1930. There is this article from the Omaha World-Herald of 2 February 1930 describing plans for an upcoming airshow:
A new sport trainer, as yet unfinished, will be shown by Overland Airways. The craft is being assembled for government tests for an approved type certificate from the department of commerce, and should be completed within the next 10 days, according to Roy Furstenburg, president of the company. It is to be painted a “neon red” color.
While neon signs glow red, the adjective is not restricted to that color. For instance, we have this note on golfers’ sartorial choices that appeared in the Oregonian on 17 March 1933:
Somewhat more brightly hued, almost to the point of being lurid, is a chiffon frock in a blue that might be called Neon blue, and which is sashed in bright fuchsia red.
Sources:
“Air Concerns Co-Operate in Offering Plane Show.” Omaha World-Herald (Nebraska), 2 February 1930, 2-C/4. Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.
Jones, Catherine. “Three-Piece Dress New for Golfers.” Oregonian (Portland), 27 March 1933, 6/3. Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.
Miśkowiec, Pawel. “Name Game: The Naming History of the Chemical Elements: Part 2—Turbulent Nineteenth Century.” Foundations of Chemistry, 8 December 2022. DOI: 10.1007/s10698-022-09451-w.
Oxford English Dictionary, third edition, September 2003, s.v. neon, n. and adj.
Ramsay, William and Morris W. Travers. “On the Companions of Argon.” Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, 63, 13 June 1898, 437–40 at 438–39. JSTOR.
Photo credit: Willem van Bergen, 2006. Flickr. https://www.flickr.com/photos/willemvanbergen/271211849/ Used under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic license.