Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun The hue of the long-wave end of the visible spectrum, evoked in the human observer by radiant energy with wavelengths of approximately 630 to 750 nanometers; any of a group of colors that may vary in lightness and saturation and whose hue resembles that of blood; one of the additive or light primaries; one of the psychological primary hues.
  • noun A pigment or dye having a red hue.
  • noun Something that has a red hue.
  • noun A Communist.
  • noun A revolutionary activist.
  • noun The condition of being in debt or operating at a loss.
  • adjective Having a color resembling that of blood.
  • adjective Reddish in color or having parts that are reddish in color.
  • adjective Having a reddish or coppery skin color.
  • adjective Often Offensive Of or being a Native American.
  • adjective Having a ruddy or flushed complexion.
  • adjective Relating to or being a red state.
  • adjective Communist.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To make red; redden.
  • To put in order; tidy: often with up: as, to red up a house or one's self.
  • To disentangle; clear; put a stop to, as a quarrel, by interference; adjust.
  • To separate, as two combatants.
  • A dialectal form of rid.
  • noun In coal-mining, rubbish; attle; waste.
  • noun The nest of a fish; a trench dug by a fish in which to spawn.
  • noun A form of re- used before vowels.
  • noun An obsolete or dialectal form of read.
  • Of a bright, warm color resembling that of blood or of the highest part of the primary rainbow. See II.
  • Ultra-radical; revolutionary; violent: from the use of a red flag as a revolutionary emblem: as, a red republican.
  • A book containing the names of all the persons in the service of the state.
  • The Peerage. See peerage, 3.
  • Synonyms Flashing, claming, fiery, bloody.
  • noun A color more or less resembling that of blood or the lower end of the spectrum.
  • noun A red pigment.
  • noun An object of a red color, as wine, gold, etc.
  • noun Specifically, a red cent. See under I.
  • noun A red republican (which see, under republican).
  • noun plural The catamenial discharges; menses.
  • noun A suffix of Anglo-Saxon origin, meaning ‘condition,’ ‘state,’ occurring in hatred, kindred (for *kinred), gossipred, etc. It is analogous to -hood, which has taken its place in a few instances, as in brotherhood, neighborhood.
  • A semi-official publication issued quarterly in China, and there called the “Complete Book of the Girdle-wearers,” containing lists of all the officials and gentry of the country, together with details of place of birth, etc.
  • noun In archery: The second and next to the innermost circle of the target, which is colored red.
  • noun An arrow which hits this circle; a hit in the red. Such a hit counts 7 by the present method of scoring. In old archery the innermost circle was sometimes colored red.
  • noun A chocolate-colored compound, C12HuO7, found in cinchona-bark, and also formed when an ammoniacal solution of quinotannic acid stands exposed to the air.
  • noun Same as azococcine, 1.
  • noun Same as ponceau 3RB.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • imp. & p. p. of read.
  • transitive verb Prov. Eng. & Scot. To put on order; to make tidy; also, to free from entanglement or embarrassement; -- generally with up.
  • noun The color of blood, or of that part of the spectrum farthest from violet, or a tint resembling these.
  • noun A red pigment.
  • noun (European Politics), Cant An abbreviation for Red Republican. See under Red, a.
  • noun (Med.) The menses.
  • noun a pigment prepared by the Dutch, similar to Indian red.

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English, from Old English rēad; see reudh- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From the archaic verb rede.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Old English hreddan ("to save, to deliver, recover, rescue"), from Proto-Germanic *hradjanan.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Middle English, from Middle Low German, compare Dutch redden.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Old English rēad, from Proto-Germanic *raudaz (compare West Frisian read, Dutch rood, German rot, Danish rød), from Proto-Indo-European *h₁roudʰós, from the root *h₁rewdʰ- (compare Welsh rhudd, Latin ruber, rufus, Tocharian A/B rtär/ratre, Ancient Greek ἐρυθρός (erythrós), Albanian pruth ("redhead"), Old Church Slavonic рудъ (rudŭ), Lithuanian raúdas, Avestan raoidita, Sanskrit रुधिर (rudhirá) 'red, bloody').

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