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Jim Rogers (a famous investor) is very enamored with the natural blondeness of his current (third) wife.

See here:

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and here:

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I once came across an interview of his where he described her as a "something blonde". I had to look up something in the dictionary and it referred to genetics related to blondeness, and the word essentially meant "natural" in the context of "natural blonde."

As I remember, the word had at least one "x" in it. As I remember it, the word was something like: xanthial, or xythilial or some such.

For the life of me I can't find that interview nor remember the word any more. I've googled tons of versions of potential word candidates but nothing comes up. Wikipedia hasn't been much help either.

If you know some scientific terms for "natural blonde", please share them.

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  • xanthine is Greek for blond: xanthiá (the blond women, if I remember correctly). We all say in English natural blond as opposed to a dyed blond. It is not a scientific term for blond, no e. There are no "scientific names" for hair colors.
    – Lambie
    Commented Sep 11, 2019 at 22:31
  • @Lambie you could be right that there are no scientific names for hair color. I thought that word was the scientific name, so that's what I called it. As I commented earlier, in the accepted answer below, it might have been "xanthine". Thanks for adding that it's the Greek word for blond. Unfortunately when I google "xanthine" alone, there's nothing on the first page mentioning that it's the Greek word for blond. So that's good to know.
    – thanks_in_advance
    Commented Sep 11, 2019 at 22:35
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    @Lambie Since the term was linked to ethnology, that seems close enough to meeting the OP's understanding of it being a scientific term.
    – Spagirl
    Commented Sep 12, 2019 at 9:26
  • @Lambie My question was incorrect so you down-voted the response? That makes sense in your world?
    – thanks_in_advance
    Commented Feb 8, 2020 at 21:44

1 Answer 1

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Xanthotrichous? Merriam Webster defines it as “having blonde or yellow hair”.

If not that then xanthous, a term used in ethnology (which might be obsolete) meaning “of or pertaining to those races of man which have yellowish, red, auburn, or brown hair”, as defined by the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

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  • I believe you're right. If not the exact word, then that word shared the root with the 2 words you suggested (it might have been "xanthine" which shows up as a likely candidate here. Thank you. I'm amazed. May I ask what detective work led you to these words?
    – thanks_in_advance
    Commented Sep 11, 2019 at 22:21
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    @thanks_in_advance OED.com advanced search for words containing“x” with a definition containing “blond*” lead me to xanthous and searching that in Google brought up the other word.
    – Laurel ♦
    Commented Sep 11, 2019 at 22:56

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