hoar adj.

"color," Old English hiw "color; form, appearance; species, kind; beauty," earlier heow, hiow, from Proto-Germanic *hiwam (source also of Old Norse hy "bird's down," Swedish hy "skin, complexion," Gothic hiwi "form, appearance"), from PIE *kiwo-, suffixed form of root *kei- (2), a color adjective of broad application (source also of Sanskrit chawi "hide, skin, complexion, color, beauty, splendor," Lithuanian šyvas "white").

A common word in Old English, squeezed into obscurity after c. 1600 by color (n.) but revived 1850s in chemistry and chromatography, often in a distinctive sense in reference to the quality of color other than luminosity and chroma.

German equivalent of Mister (but also used without a name), 1650s, originally "nobler, superior," from Middle High German herre, from Old High German herro, comparative of hēr "noble, worthy, important, exalted," from PIE *kei- (2), a color adjective (see hue (n.1)), in suffixed form *koi-ro- here meaning "gray, hoary," hence "gray-haired, venerable." Cognate with Old Frisian hera, Dutch heer; perhaps in this usage a loan-translation of Latin senior in the High German area that spread into other Germanic languages. Hence also Herrenvolk "master race," the concept of the German people in Nazi ideology.