incarnadine

Meanings

1. Of the pale pink or pale red colour of flesh; carnation.
2. Of the blood-red colour of raw flesh; crimson.
3. Bloodstained, bloody.
4. Of a red colour.

1. The pale pink or pale red colour of flesh; carnation.
2. The blood-red colour of raw flesh; crimson.
3. A red colour.

1. To make flesh-coloured.
2. To make red, especially blood-coloured or crimson; to redden.

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). By surface analysis, in- + Latin carn- + -ade + -ine. 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.