saffron
Language: English
Part of speech: verb
Pronunciation: ipa: /ˈsæfɹən/
ipa: /ˈsæfəɹn/
rhymes: -æfɹən
Forms: form: saffrons
form: saffroning
form: saffroned
form: saffroned
Etymology: Etymology tree
Aramaic צפרder.
Arabic زَعْفَرَان (zaʕfarān)bor.
Medieval Latin safranumbor.
Old French safranbor.
Middle English saffron
English saffron
Inherited from Middle English saffron, borrowed from Old French safran, borrowed from Medieval Latin safranum, borrowed from Arabic زَعْفَرَان (zaʕfarān), from Aramaic צפר.
Senses: examples: text: saffroned water, saffroned rice
text: Saffrond wyne bryngeth mirthe, and taketh away Melancholines […]
ref: 1559, Conrad Gesner, “Of certain other Aromatical wynes”, in Peter Morwen, transl., The Treasure of Euonymus, London: John Day, page 407:
text: Well-saffroned was that barley-soup!
ref: 1884, Robert Browning, “Two Camels”, in Ferishtah’s Fancies, London: Smith, Elder, page 70:
glosses: To add saffron to (a food), for taste, colour etc.
examples: text: My dreadful thoughts been drawen vpon my face,
In blotted lines with ages iron pen,
The lothlie morpheu saffroned the place,
Where beuties damaske daz’d the eies of men.
ref: 1593, Michael Drayton, Idea the Shepheards Garland, London: Thomas Woodcocke, Second Eglog, page 6:
text: Or like the twifold-twynned Geminy,
In their star-gilded gyrdle strongly tyed,
Chayn’d by their saffrond tresses in the sky,
Standing to guard the sun-coche in his pride.
ref: c. 1594, Michael Drayton, Peirs Gaueston Earle of Cornwall His Life, Death, and Fortune, London: Nicholas Ling and John Busby:
text: We accept the perfect stillness of the ground,
And the vision of a sunset-saffroned sea.
ref: 1917, Charles V. H. Roberts, “The Call of the Country”, in Collected Poems, New York: The Torch Press, page 20:
glosses: To give a saffron colour to (something).
examples: text: The other part Northern, & ful of mountaines, a very rude and homely kinde of people doth inhabite, which are called the redshankes or wilde Scottes. They be clothed with a mantel and shyrte saffroned, after the Irishe manner, going bare legged to the knée.
ref: 1580, John Stow, “A briefe Description of Englande, Scotlande, Wales, and Cornwall”, in The Chronicles of England, London: Ralph Newberie, page 9:
text: Thee next day foloing lustring Aurora lay shymring,
Her saffrond mattresse leauing to her bedfelo Tithon.
ref: 1582, Richard Stanyhurst, transl., The First Foure Bookes of Virgil his Aeneis, Leiden: John Pates, Book 4, p. 82:
text: 1638, uncredited translator, Historie Naturall and Experimentall, of Life and Death by Francis Bacon, London: William Lee and Humphrey Mosley, p. 244,
The same Irish, use to weare Saffroned Linnen, and Shirts; Which though it were, at first, devised to prevent Vermine, yet, howsoever, I take it, to be very usefull for Lengthening of Life […]
glosses: To give a saffron colour to (something).
To dye (a fabric, garment, etc.) with a saffron-based dye.
examples: text: His horse was harnished with leaden chaines, hauing the out-side guilt, or at least saffrond in stead of guilt, to decypher a holie or golden pretence of a couetous purpose […]
ref: 1594, Thomas Nashe, The Unfortunate Traveller, London: C. Burby:
text: And like vile stones lying in saffrond tinne,
ref: 1633, John Donne, “Elegie”, in Poems, London: John Marriot, page 149:
text: Or warts, or wheales, it hangs upon her skinne.
glosses: To give a saffron colour to (something).
To colour (a metal or wooden surface) with a gilding product containing saffron.
examples: text: Saffroning the rest of the account are several other regionalisms: agin for against, hit for the expletive it, knowed as a preterite, and no use to say not bin' (a fascinating doubling of the negative).
ref: 1970, Robert Randolph Turner, Tennessee Legends: An Analysis in Terms of Motifs, Structure, and Style:
text: He saffrons his speech with Latin which he knows all by rote.
ref: 1992, Jerome Mandel, Geoffrey Chaucer: Building the Fragments of the Canterbury Tales:
text: The Nun's Priest's rhetorical devices, too numerous to catalogue exhaustively, are of two kinds: first, the heroic-historical, beginning with the setting of the occasion in a time sequence that starts with the Creation, saffroning the high points with apostrophes and epic similes, and culminating with a chase in which Chauntecleer's fall proves to have the "cosmic reverberations" required by epic standards […]
ref: 2015, Robert B. Burlin, Chaucerian Fiction, page 231:
glosses: To embellish.
Related terms: autumn crocus
crocein
crocoite
crocus
curcuma
kumkum
colchicum
crocus bag
crocus sack
turmeric