What does "incarnadine" mean?
The pale pink or pale red colour of flesh; carnation.
Incarnadine
/ɪnˈkɑːnədiːn/ adj, noun, verb
adj, noun, verb ·Uncommon ·College level
Meaning at a glance
- Primary sense: The pale pink or pale red colour of flesh; carnation.
- Grammar: incarnadine is listed as adj, noun, verb.
- Nearest alternatives: color, crimson, inflame, lipstick.
- Usage evidence: Incarnadine, or Incarnate, that is of a bright Carnation or Fleſh Colour, or of the Colour of a Damask-Roſe.
How to use "incarnadine"
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- Compare nearby synonyms to make sure "incarnadine" carries the exact meaning, tone, and strength you need.
- Use the example sentence as a context check. If your sentence uses the word differently, confirm that the grammar still fits.
Meaning check
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Source and review context
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Before you rely on this definition
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Compare nearby meanings
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Definition decision workflow
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Definitions
Noun
- 1 The pale pink or pale red colour of flesh; carnation. archaic, countable, literary, uncountable
"To dye SILK FLESH colour or INCARNADINE. For every pound of ſilk, put in a quarter of a pound of Braſil; boil it, ſtrain it through a ſieve, and pour freſh cold water upon it."
- 2 The blood-red colour of raw flesh; crimson. archaic, countable, literary, uncountable
"Now thou [the sea] must wear an unmix'd crimson; no / Barbaric blood can reconcile us now / Unto that horrible incarnadine, / But friend or foe will roll in civic slaughter."
- 3 A red colour. archaic, countable, literary, uncountable
"Now sixty-eight years of age she [Elizabeth I] has chosen for the occasion of a dance in her honor a long flowing velvet gown of incarnadine red."
Verb
- 1 To make flesh-coloured. archaic, literary, transitive
"[T]he clouds, till that time thick in the sky, broke away from the upper heaven, and allowed the noonday sun to pour down through the lantern upon her, irradiating her with a warm light that was incarnadined by her pink doublet and hose, and reflected in upon her face."
- 2 make flesh-colored wordnet
- 3 To make red, especially blood-coloured or crimson; to redden. also, archaic, figuratively, literary, transitive
"Will all great Neptunes ocean waſh this blood / Cleane from my Hand? no: this my Hand will rather / The multitudinous Seas incarnardine, / Making the Greene one, Red."
Adjective
- 1 Of the pale pink or pale red colour of flesh; carnation. archaic, literary
"Incarnadine, or Incarnate, that is of a bright Carnation or Fleſh Colour, or of the Colour of a Damask-Roſe."
- 2 Of the blood-red colour of raw flesh; crimson. archaic, literary
"Wild and dishevelled, thy luxuriant hair / Falls scattered o'er thy throbbing bosom, fair / As snow incarnadine with morning's ray;— [...]"
- 3 Bloodstained, bloody. archaic, figuratively, literary
"His poem, however, is meetly enough entituled—Christ Crucified! But the Rev. William Ellis Wall is worse than [Pontius] Pilate. That "wretch," as this miserable calls the Roman governor, was careful to wash his hands of all guilt in the transaction; but the Rev. William Ellis Wall holds forth triumphantly his two unhallowed and incarnadine maniples of reeking digits, boasting of the infamous achievement in a most egregious preface."
- 4 Of a red colour. archaic, literary
"Let the wine incarnadine, / In crystal goblets gleaming, / Be the sign, O muse divine, / Of golden moments teeming."
Example
"Incarnadine, or Incarnate, that is of a bright Carnation or Fleſh Colour, or of the Colour of a Damask-Roſe."
Common questions
What is a synonym for "incarnadine"?
Common synonyms include: color, crimson, inflame, lipstick, pigment, pink.
How do you use "incarnadine" in a sentence?
Incarnadine, or Incarnate, that is of a bright Carnation or Fleſh Colour, or of the Colour of a Damask-Roſe.
How do you pronounce "incarnadine"?
Pronounced /ɪnˈkɑːnədiːn/.
Etymology
The adjective is derived from French incarnadin, incarnadine, from Italian incarnadino, a variant of incarnatino (“carnation; flesh colour”), from incarnato (“embodied, incarnate”) + -ino (suffix forming adjectives denoting composition, colour, or other qualities). Incarnato is derived from Ecclesiastical Latin and Late Latin incarnātus (“having been made incarnate”), the perfect passive participle of incarnō (“to become or make incarnate; to make into flesh”), from in- (suffix meaning ‘in, inside, within’) + Latin carō (“flesh, meat; body”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *(s)ker- (“to cut off”)) + -ō (suffix forming regular first-conjugation verbs). The noun and verb are derived from the adjective. Adjective senses 2 and 3 (“of the blood-red colour of raw flesh; (figurative) bloostained, bloody”) and noun sense 2 (“blood-red colour of raw flesh”) are due to William Shakespeare’s use of the word as a verb in Macbeth (c. 1606): see the quotation below.