Scarlet
Middle English (originally denoting any brightly coloured cloth): shortening of Old French escarlate, from medieval Latin scarlata, via Arabic and medieval Greek from late Latin sigillatus ‘decorated with small images’, from sigillum ‘small image’.
wiktionary
From Middle English scarlet, scarlat, borrowed from Old French escarlate(“a type of cloth”), from Medieval Latin scarlatum(“scarlet cloth”). This was long thought to derive from Persian سقرلات (saqerlât, “a warm woollen cloth”), but the Persian word (first attested in the 1290s) is now thought to be from Arabic سِقِلَّات (siqillāt), denoting very expensive, luxury silks dyed scarlet-red using the exceptionally expensive dye, first attested around the ninth century. The most obvious route for the Arabic word siqillāt to have entered the Romance languages would be via the Arabic-speaking Iberian region of Al-Andalus, particularly Almería, where kermes was produced extensively. [1] The word then came to be used of woollen cloth dyed with the same dye.
etymonline
scarlet (n.)
mid-13c., "rich cloth" (often, but not necessarily, bright red), from a shortened form of Old French escarlate "scarlet (color), top-quality fabric" (12c., Modern French écarlate), which, with Medieval Latin scarlatum "scarlet, cloth of scarlet," Italian scarlatto, Spanish escarlate often is said to be from a Middle Eastern source, but perhaps is rather from a Germanic source akin to Old High German scarlachen, scharlachen (c. 1200), from scar "sheared" + lachen "cloth."
In English as the name of a color, attested from late 14c. As an adjective from c. 1300. Scarlet lady, etc. (Isaiah i.18, Revelation xvii.1-5) is from notion of "red with shame or indignation." Scarlet fever is from 1670s, so called for its characteristic rash. Scarlet oak, a New World tree, attested from 1590s. Scarlet letter traces to Hawthorne's story (1850). German Scharlach, Dutch scharlaken show influence of words cognate with English lake (n.2).
