Word of the Day

: March 3, 2009

incarnadine

adjective in-KAHR-nuh-dyne

What It Means

1 : having the pinkish color of flesh

2 : red; especially : bloodred

incarnadine in Context

"Tavel [wine] … is noted for its assertive fruit and magnificent rich and brilliant incarnadine color." (Vick Knight Jr., Press Enterprise [Riverside, CA], August 11, 1999)

Did You Know?

"Carn-" is the Latin root for "flesh," and "incarnates" is Latin for "flesh-colored." English speakers picked up the "pinkish" sense of "incarnadine" back in the late 1500s. Since then, the adjective has come to refer to the dark red color of freshly cut, fleshy meat as well as to the pinkish color of the outer skin of some humans. The word can be used as a verb, too, meaning "to redden." Shakespeare used it that way in Macbeth: “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.”