Etymology: Middle English claré , < Old French claré < Latin type clārātum (see Du Cange), a participial form, lit. ‘that which is cleared or clarified’. Claretum also occurs in later medieval Latin ( < French), whence claret n.¹ in the same sense.

Etymology: In Old English slarie, slarege; in 16th cent. claré, clarie, evidently representing the medieval Latin sclarea, in modern French sclarée, though the loss of s is not actually explained. Sclarea occurs in Matthioli, and Turner (1548); Lobel (1576) has ‘scarlea, German scharlach, Belg. scarleye, Italian sciaria [Florio has schiarea], Angl. clarye’; Pritzel and Jensen, Deutschen Volksnamen Pflanz. 359, give Old High German scaraleia, later scarleia, scharleya, scarleye; Gerard has scarlea, sclarea; scariola is also given by some as a medieval Latin synonym, and has been suggested as the original form of the word. But the evidence of the Old English vocabulary and Leechdoms supports the antiquity of sclarea, without throwing any light upon its origin or history. In the 16th cent. clarey was solved by the apothecaries into clair-ye, clear-eye, translated Oculus christi, Godes-eie, and See-bright, and eye-salves made of it (Prior), on the strength of this supposed derivation.

Etymology: apparently < clarion n., or the early clarine n., but the form is abnormal; no corresponding word appears in French or Romanic.