tincture

Meanings

1. Senses relating to colour, and to dipping something into a liquid.
2. A pigment or other substance that colours or dyes; specifically, a pigment used as a cosmetic.
3. A colour or tint, especially if produced by a pigment or something which stains; a tinge.
4. A slight addition of a thing to something else; a shade, a touch, a trace.
5. A hue or pattern used in the depiction of a coat of arms.
6. The act of colouring or dyeing.
7. A slight physical quality other than colour (especially taste), or an abstract quality, added to something; a tinge.
8. A small flaw; a blemish, a stain.
9. Synonym of baptism.
10. Scientific and alchemical senses.
11. A medicine consisting of one or more substances dissolved in ethanol or some other solvent.
12. A (small) alcoholic drink.

1. To colour or stain (something) with, or as if with, a dye or pigment.
2. Followed by with: to add to or impregnate (something) with (a slight amount of) an abstract or (obsolete) physical quality; to imbue, to taint, to tinge.
3. To dissolve (a substance) in ethanol or some other solvent to produce a medicinal tincture.
4. To have a taint or tinge of some quality.

Etymology

The noun is derived from Late Middle English tincture (“a dye, pigment; a colour, hue, tint; process of colouring or dyeing; medicinal ointment or salve (perhaps one discolouring the skin); use of a medicinal tincture; (alchemy) transmutation of base metals into gold; ability to cause such transmutation; substance supposed to cause such transmutation”) [and other forms], borrowed from Latin tīnctūra (“act of dyeing”) + Middle English -ure (suffix indicating an action or a process and the means or result of that action or process). Tīnctūra is derived from tīnctus (“coloured, tinged; dipped in; impregnated with; treated”) + -tūra (suffix forming action nouns expressing activities or results); while tīnctus is the perfect passive participle of tingō (“to colour, dye, tinge; to dip (in), immerse; to impregnate (with); to moisten, wet; to smear”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *teng- (“to dip; to soak”). Doublet of tainture, teinture, and tinctura. The verb is derived from the noun.