Learn English – Origin of “Rose tinted glasses”

etymology

On another SE site I frequent, in a question a non-native English speaker used "pink glasses" where they clearly meant the idiom "rose tinted" or "rose coloured" glasses.

The meaning of "looking through rose tinted glasses" is to see only good things, only the best parts of the view, only the positive attributes etc., as supported by this www.thefreedictionary.com definition:

rose-tinted glasses
(British, American & Australian) also rose-tinted spectacles (British)

if someone looks at something through rose-tinted glasses, they see only the pleasant parts of it She has always looked at life through rose-tinted glasses.

However I started wondering how this idiom came to be. Certainly, to some dispositions, seeing the world with a soft pink glow (though not all roses are pink, to be sure), might count as comforting and "nice".

Google did not provide anything other that definitions of the phrase and looking for "rose-tinted glasses" in etymonline resulted in a most curious selection of results (possibly NSFW depending on your text filtering)

How (and when) did this come to be a widely accepted idiom for "only seeing the positive", with shades or subtext of naiveté?

Best Answer

To complement the other answers, I would like to point out the use of tinted lenses (of various colours) for therapeutic purposes. Since the 18th century, tinted lenses became more widespread, following some early birds (cf. the Samuel Pepys entry).

While it may be difficult to assess the efficacy of the practice, it seems that tinted glasses were commonly stipulated and even believed to be efficient against a number of maladies (such as jaundice, apparently). With hopefully fuller understanding, they still are.

This link to Axon Optics suggests rose-tinted glasses do have therapeutic effect against migraine. Quote:

A study performed by researchers at the University of Birmingham, England tested a group of migraine sufferers by having them wear glasses with a rose colored tint called FL-41. The tint preferentially blocks blue-green light and was originally developed to reduce sensitivity to fluorescent lighting, but has been shown effective in mitigating the frequency and severity of migraine, blepharospasm, and other light-sensitive conditions. Participants experienced a reduction in the number of migraines, from 6.2 episodes per month to 1.6 episodes per month. Dr Katz and researchers at the University of Utah continue to study and work to optimize tinted lenses for light sensitive patients.

(emphasis mine, references omitted)

This might be one explanation of the rose-tinted effect: a relief, which may border on euphoria.

I originally became interested in this post because, for Czechs, rose-tinted glasses are a notorious idiom, often (and probably erroneously) associated with Comenius' Labyrinth of the World and Paradise of the Heart. Therein, the pilgrim is accompanied in his wanderings by a Mr. Delusion, who presents him with a pair of glasses "ground from assumption and habit", which distort the pilgrim's perception considerably.

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