Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Of a fleshy pink color.
- adj. Blood-red.
- v. To make incarnadine, especially to redden.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Of a carnation-color; pale-red.
- To dye red or carnation; tinge with the color of flesh.
- n. A color ranging from flesh-color to blood-red.
Wiktionary
- adj. Of the blood red colour of raw flesh.
- adj. Of a general red colour
- n. The blood red colour of raw flesh.
- n. Red in general
- v. to cause to be the blood-red colour of raw flesh
- v. to cause to be red or crimson
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. Flesh-colored; of a carnation or pale red color.
- v. To dye red or crimson.
WordNet 3.0
- v. make flesh-colored
Etymologies
- French incarnadin, from Italian incarnadino, variant of incarnatino, diminutive of incarnato : in-, in (from Latin; see in-2) + carne, flesh (from Latin carō, carn-; see incarnate).
Examples
“I've had some success in getting them past it when it's a matter of language by saying "English has a huge vocabulary, and the author/poet/whatever could have chosen another word instead of this one - so don't just tell me that Shakespeare uses 'incarnadine' to mean 'red' here, but tell me why 'incarnadine' rather than 'red' makes a difference.”
“But then I get long explanations about how Shx uses "incarnadine" instead of "red" because he's a really, really good writer.”
“A later attempt at Paris to "incarnadine" the neighborhood of the Champs de Mars, and "round up" a number of boulevardiers, met with a more disastrous result, -- the gleam of steel from mounted gendarmes, and a mandate to his employers.”
“incarnadine", for example is much touted as a Shakespeare coinage, but did it really catch on?”
“In one routine, describing his “ludicrously alpha” surfing instructor for the Forgetting Sarah Marshall shoot, he exclaims, “The sea were incarnadine wiv his testosterone!””
“No; this my hand will rather the multitudinous seas incarnadine, making the green one red.”
“* All of the 'Mentalist' episodes have some sort of connection to the color red because of Patrick Jane's nemesis Red John - words like "crimson", "scarlet", "blood", incarnadine, rubies.”
“And yes, a tad unsettling, especially that final pull back from the incarnadine beach:”
Information, Culture, Policy, Education: Advert Gothic: amputation against shark finning
“They're not cheap, mind you, and will run you about $15 but I wouldn't part with mine the tall, incarnadine model and wish I had all three.”
“I've been destined to travel these impossible switchbacks, but it's as if I'm skating on his heart, blood tracks looping everywhere, incarnadine dips and curves...”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘incarnadine’.
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Adjectival Arcana
A roster of adjectives that infrequently surface in typical conversation and writing. Many are dredged from scientific or other technical jargon or sieved from examples of disused archaic forms.
unitegmic, acaulescent, reticuloendothelial, ingressive, uniate, acanthopterygian, ossific, epiphysial, perivisceral, acœlomatous, cestoid, acælomate and 7762 more...
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Logolepsy
"Luciferous Logolepsy is a collection of over 9,000 obscure English words. Though the definition of an 'English' word might seem to be straightforward, it is not. There exist so many adopted, deriv...
Anschauung, Areopagus, Argus, Briarean, Dei gratia, Dei judicium, Deo volente, Duecento, Foehn, Geflugelte Worte, Gegenschein, Hakenkreuz and 9230 more...
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word heroin
Words that are a rush both to look at and to say.
smack, incarnadine, expiate, cutty sark, travesty, dona nobis pacem, syllabub, incandescent, firmament, zanzibar, fiasco, turbulent and 8 more...
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Resonant words
conflagration, cascando, fianchetto, incarnadine, oubliette, colophon, hegemony, omertà, cavalier, scrivener, armistice, pastiche
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Kathy C's List
My favorite words
golconda, au fait, purlicue, tautonym, cunctatory, gynecomastia, vesta, imprimatur, efflux, antediluvian, protean, phlegmatic and 24 more...
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Words descriptive of the colour of the sea
sloe, hyaline, dull, turquoise, slate, snotgreen, ultramarine, glaucous, murky, ashen, wine-dark, claret and 15 more...
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Favorites
clever, cerulean, incarnadine, stasis, parabolically, celadon
sweetzingiber blood-red in color
Jul 31, 2009
mollusque He kept furtively directing at me the electric torch through his incarnadined fingers to see if I was not about to faint.
--Vladimir Nabokov, 1974, Look at the Harlequins! Jun 7, 2009
reesetee Myth, if you look around, you'll see that many of those definitions, pulled from WordNet, are a little off. That's why we affectionately (and sometimes not so affectionately) call it WeirdNet. Feb 2, 2009
myth This definition is a little off. Per the first commenter, the word is mostly used to describe a bloodred color due to the Shakespeare quote even though prior to Shakespeare it was known to be a softer pink.
http://www.worldwidewords.org/weirdwords/ww-inc2.htm Feb 1, 2009
innanja Virginia Woolf talks about "incarnadine" in her eulology to words: http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcfour/audiointerviews/profilepages/woolfv1.shtml Dec 9, 2007
seanahan 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. Dec 2, 2006