אָדֹם is classed among the few basic color terms of Biblical Hebrew, a Berlin-Kay stage III to IV system whose uncontested terms are white, black, red, and a green-yellow macrocategory (Brenner, Colour Terms in the Old Testament; Hartley, Semantics of Ancient Hebrew Colour Lexemes; Bulakh). The exegetical consequence, pressed first by Brenner and adopted by Milgrom (Numbers) and by Carol and Eric Meyers (Haggai, Zechariah 1-8), is that the term necessarily absorbs everything English divides among red, pink, orange, brown, russet, bay, and tawny, since Biblical Hebrew has no basic term for brown: the פָּרָה אֲדֻמָּה of Numbers 19:2 is a uniformly reddish brown cow (Milgrom: brown, for which there is no Hebrew word), the סוּסִים אֲדֻמִּים of Zechariah 1:8 and 6:2 are bay or chestnut, and the נָזִיד אָדֹם of Genesis 25:30 is a dun lentil stew. The reduplicated אֲדַמְדָּם of Leviticus 13-14 is a derived diagnostic term marking a narrower reddish nuance, which itself confirms אָדֹם as the underlying basic term. On the adjective's usage the lexica agree, and BDB catalogues the environments as follows: blood at 2 Kings 3:22, horses at Zechariah 1:8 and 6:2, the heifer at Numbers 19:2, garments at Isaiah 63:2, complexion at Song 5:10, and the substantival הָאָדֹם of Genesis 25:30. Song 5:10 (צַח וְאָדוֹם) belongs to a Near Eastern white-and-ruddy formula of masculine beauty (Pope, Song of Songs; Murphy; Exum; Longman), the same idiom used of David as אַדְמוֹנִי at 1 Samuel 16:12. Isaiah 63:1-6 compounds four homophonous puns on Edom, red, blood, and Bozrah/vintage (Blenkinsopp, Isaiah 56-66; Goldingay), and Cogan and Tadmor note the same sound-play behind the water that looked red at 2 Kings 3:22, which came from the direction of Edom; Meyers and Meyers and Petersen resist any strict allegory of the horse colors in Zechariah. On etymology, Militarev and Kogan (Semitic Etymological Dictionary) reconstruct a Proto-Semitic base ʔadam- meaning dark red or tawny, from which red earth, tanned hide, and ruddy complexion radiate, and older lexica (BDB) unified the whole family under the color; HALOT, Gesenius 18, and Maaß (TDOT) caution that the Akkadian cognates attest red and red earth but not man, so deriving אָדָם from the color root is uncertain, while DCH declines to privilege any reconstruction. The adjective itself, along with אֲדַמְדָּם, אֹדֶם, אַדְמוֹנִי, and אֱדוֹם, is securely a derivative of the color root. A methodological debate persists over whether the great dye words (שָׁנִי, תּוֹלַעַת שָׁנִי, כַּרְמִיל, אַרְגָּמָן) are color terms at all or substance terms belonging to a separate lexical category (Brenner, Hartley) rather than one symbolic macro-category alongside אָדֹם (Noegel, Scarlet and Harlots).