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Word of the DayMonday, July 26, 2004

incarnadine

\in-KAR-nuh-dyn\ , adjective:
1.
Having a fleshy pink color.
2.
Red; blood-red.
transitive verb:
1.
To make red or crimson.
Quotes:
Captain Dobo opened the castle's wine cellars and broke open the casks for his men, who greeted the sultan's soldiers without first politely wiping the incarnadine wine from their blood-red lips and bearded chins.
-- Kevin Keating, "Kilroy Was Here!", International Travel News, October 1, 2001
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
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
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
Origin:
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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