incarnadine
Language: English
Part of speech: adj
Pronunciation: ipa: /ɪnˈkɑːnədiːn/
ipa: /-daɪn/
ipa: /-dɪn/
ipa: /ɪnˈkɑɹnəˌdiːn/
Forms: form: more incarnadine
form: most incarnadine
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.
Senses: examples: text: Incarnadine, or Incarnate, that is of a bright Carnation or Fleſh Colour, or of the Colour of a Damask-Roſe.
ref: [1706, Edward Phillips, compiler, J[ohn] K[ersey the younger], “Incarnadine, or Incarnate”, in The New World of Words: Or, Universal English Dictionary. […], 6th edition, London: […] J. Phillips, […]; N. Rhodes, […]; and J. Taylor, […], →OCLC:
qualifier: originally
glosses: Of the pale pink or pale red colour of flesh; carnation.
examples: text: Wild and dishevelled, thy luxuriant hair / Falls scattered o'er thy throbbing bosom, fair / As snow incarnadine with morning's ray;— [...]
ref: 1840 May, James A. Morris, “Sonnet.—No. III. La Madalena. By Guido.”, in [Edward Smallwood], editor, The Psyche. A Magazine of Belles Lettres, the Drama, Poetry, Music, and the Fine Arts, volume IV, London: E[dward] Smallwood, […], →OCLC, page 224:
text: The bandages on his hands – cerise and incarnadine, opalescent and viridian – were grotesqueries that only emphasised his stature.
ref: 2010, Stephen [Reeder] Donaldson, Against All Things Ending, London: Gollancz, →ISBN:
glosses: Of the blood-red colour of raw flesh; crimson.
examples: text: 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.
ref: 1833 December, “The Poets of the Day. Batch the Third.”, in Fraser’s Magazine for Town and Country, volume VIII, number XLVIII, London: James Fraser […], →OCLC, page 658, column 2:
text: "Basically I am a very good person." This from the latest serial killer–destined for the chair, they say–who, with incarnadine axe, recently dispatched half a dozen registered nurses in Texas.
ref: 1992 October 16, Donna Tartt, chapter 6, in The Secret History (A Borzoi Book), New York, N.Y.: Alfred A[braham] Knopf, published October 2002, →ISBN, page 257:
glosses: Bloodstained, bloody.
examples: text: Let the wine incarnadine, / In crystal goblets gleaming, / Be the sign, O muse divine, / Of golden moments teeming.
ref: 1908 May, “Book XV: In College Days”, in Oscar Leslie Boose, editor, The Michiganensian: A Year Book for 1908, volume XII, number 1, [Ann Arbor, Mich.]: Senior classes of the University of Michigan, →OCLC, page XV-10:
text: Green orchards with ripe fruit incarnadine, / Each several member autumn-canopied / So thickly as to bend beneath its freight, [...]
ref: 1931, E[ric] K[ent] Ellis, The Call of Abraham: The Seatonian Prize Poem for 1931, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: University Press, →OCLC, page 2:
text: The chaplain glanced at the bridge table that served as his desk and saw only the abominable orange-red, pear-shaped, plum tomato he had obtained that same morning from Colonel Cathcart, still lying on its side where he had forgotten it like an indestructible and incarnadine symbol of his own ineptitude.
ref: 1961 November 10, Joseph Heller, “The Chaplain”, in Catch-22, London: Vintage Books, published 2010, →ISBN, pages 316–317:
text: I'd like to call attention to one last element of this page. [Charlotte] Salomon's insignia, here incarnadine and enclosed in a circle, like a wax seal, elsewhere floating on the lower left hand side of the page.
ref: 2014, Ariela Freedman, “Charlotte Salomon, Graphic Artist”, in Sarah Lightman, editor, Graphic Details: Jewish Women’s Confessional Comics in Essays and Interviews, Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland & Company, →ISBN, part II (Essays), page 43:
qualifier: generally
glosses: Of a red colour.