Saturday, October 3, 2009

incarnadine

incarnadine \in-KAR-nuh-dyn\, adjective:

1. Having a fleshy pink color.
2. Red; blood-red.

transitive verb:
1. To make red or crimson.

Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood
Clean from my hand? No, this my hand will rather
The multitudinous seas incarnadine,
Making the green one red.
-- Shakespeare, Macbeth
In a night of rain, the ruddy reflections of their lights incarnadine the clouds till the entire city appears to be the prey of a monster conflagration.
-- Alvan F. Sanborn, "New York After Paris", The Atlantic, October 1906
The more he scrubbed it, the more it bled.
It made the seas incarnadine, he said.
-- Judy Driscoll, "Biddy takes pink gin to the country dance", Hecate, May 1, 1993

From Italian incarnatino, which came from the Latin incarnato, something incarnate, made flesh, from in + caro, carn-, "flesh." It is related to carnation, etymologically the flesh-colored flower; incarnate, "in the flesh; made flesh"; and carnal, "pertaining to the body or its appetites."

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