pigment

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. A substance used as coloring.
2. n. Dry coloring matter, usually an insoluble powder, to be mixed with water, oil, or another base to produce paint and similar products.
3. n. A substance, such as chlorophyll or melanin, that produces a characteristic color in plant or animal tissue.
4. v. To color with pigment.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. Any substance that is or can be used by painters to impart color to bodies; technically, a dry substance, usually in the form of powder or in lumps so lightly held together as to be easily pulverized, which after it has been mixed with a liquid medium can be applied by painters to surfaces to be colored. Pigment is properly restricted to the dry coloring matter which when mixed with a vehicle becomes a. paint; but the two words are commonly used without discrimination. (See paint.) In oil-painting, the pigments are ground or triturated to render them smooth, usually in poppy- or nut-oil, since these dry best and do not deaden the colors.
2. n. In biology, organic coloring matter; any organized substance whose presence in the tissues of animals and plants colors them. Pigment is the generic or indifferent term, most kinds of pigment having specific names. Coloring matter of one kind or another is almost universal in animals and plants, comparatively few of which are colorless. Pigments are very generally distributed in the integument and its appendages, as the skin, and especially the fur, feathers, scales, etc., of animals, and the leaves and other soft parts of plants. The dark color of the negro's skin is due to the abundance of pigment in the epidermis. The black appearance of the pupil of the eye is due to the heavy pigmentation of the choroid, and various colors of the iris depend upon specific pigments. Such coloring matters are often collected in special sacs which open and shut, producing the “shot” or play of color of the chameleon, dolphin, cuttlefish, and other animals. In many low animals and plants the color of the pigment is characteristic of genera, families, or even higher groups, as among infusorians, algals, etc. See cut under cell.
3. n. Highly spiced wine sweetened with honey; piment.

Wiktionary

1. n. biology Any color in plant or animal cells
2. n. A dry colorant, usually an insoluble powder
3. n. obsolete Wine flavoured with spices and honey.
4. v. transitive To add color or pigment to something.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. Any material from which a dye, a paint, or the like, may be prepared; particularly, the refined and purified coloring matter ready for mixing with an appropriate vehicle.
2. n. (Physiol.) Any one of the colored substances found in animal and vegetable tissues and fluids, as bilirubin, urobilin, chlorophyll, etc.
3. n. Wine flavored with species and honey.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. dry coloring material (especially a powder to be mixed with a liquid to produce paint, etc.)
2. n. any substance whose presence in plant or animal tissues produces a characteristic color
3. v. color or dye with a pigment
4. n. a substance used as a coating to protect or decorate a surface (especially a mixture of pigment suspended in a liquid); dries to form a hard coating
5. v. acquire pigment; become colored or imbued