Definitions

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

  • transitive verb To apply a trace of color to; tint.
  • transitive verb To affect slightly, as with a contrasting quality.
  • noun A small amount of a color incorporated or added.
  • noun A slight added element, property, or influence.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A slight or moderate degree of coloration; a shade or tint of color; a modification of hue, tint, or complexion.
  • noun A modifying infusion or intermixture; a shade of some qualifying property or characteristic; a touch, taste, or flavor.
  • To imbue or overspread with some shade or degree of color; impress with a slight coloring; modify the tint, hue, or complexion of.
  • To qualify the taste or savor of; give a taste, flavor, smack, or tang to.
  • To modify by intermixture or infusion; vary the tone or bent of.

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

  • noun A degree, usually a slight degree, of some color, taste, or something foreign, infused into another substance or mixture, or added to it; tincture; color; dye; hue; shade; taste.
  • transitive verb To imbue or impregnate with something different or foreign; ; to affect in some degree with the qualities of another substance, either by mixture, or by application to the surface; especially, to color slightly; to stain

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A small amount of something, especially of an added color.
  • noun The degree of vividness of a color; shade, hue or tint.
  • verb transitive To add a small amount of color; to tint.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a pale or subdued color
  • verb color lightly
  • verb affect as in thought or feeling
  • noun a slight but appreciable amount

Etymologies

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

[Middle English tingen, from Latin tingere.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Latin tingō.

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Examples

  • These particular notes filled me with a desire for etymology and philology, but also a desire for the worlds of the other old languages mentioned, the mythology harbored in the consciousness tinged (tinge is weak) by that medium.

    A Note on the Notes « Unknowing 2009

  • Petey, everything you write has a certain tinge of melancholy.

    Matthew Yglesias » What’s My Name, Fool? 2007

  • Anyway, Los Siete Castigos is filled with tracks like this, that take their sweet time unfolding - much like Villalobos 'most recent work (see his Perlon 12 Chromosul) - with highly developed shuffling rhythms, many of which take on a Latin tinge with slices of congas and other elements reminiscent of his South American roots.

    Music (For Robots): October 2005 Archives 2005

  • Anyway, Los Siete Castigos is filled with tracks like this, that take their sweet time unfolding - much like Villalobos 'most recent work (see his Perlon 12 Chromosul) - with highly developed shuffling rhythms, many of which take on a Latin tinge with slices of congas and other elements reminiscent of his South American roots.

    Fine and Dandy (Music (For Robots)) 2005

  • It occurs to me that the things and ways associated exclusively with men have become so maligned in the past generation or so that, to many women like Ireland—and many men, unfortunately--the phrase “guy talk” has a pejorative tinge to it.

    March 2004 2004

  • My body was tired but my mind kept playing pictures of a warm baked apple tart and I swear I could smell the tart aroma coupled with the buttery tinge from the shortcrust pastry.

    she bakes & she cooks 2008

  • I have often mentioned the grandeur, but I feel myself unequal to the task of conveying an idea of the beauty and elegance of the scene when the spiry tops of the pines are loaded with ripening seed, and the sun gives a glow to their light-green tinge, which is changing into purple, one tree more or less advanced contrasted with another.

    Letters written during a short residence in Sweden, Norway and Denmark 2003

  • This is true in the average case, but in the case of a person of very strong physical vitality or virility, the prana-aura takes on, at times, a faint warm pink tinge, which is really a reflection from the red astral color, of the meaning of which color you shall now learn.

    The Human Aura Astral Colors and Thought Forms Swami Panchadasi

  • The color of rubies varies from the deepest to the palest red, all having more or less of a purplish tinge, which is more plainly perceived in the deeper colored specimens than in the paler ones.

    A Catechism of Familiar Things; Their History, and the Events Which Led to Their Discovery. With a Short Explanation of Some of the Principal Natural Phenomena. For the Use of Schools and Families. Enlarged and Revised Edition. Anonymous

  • Copper produces a reddish tinge, which is by no means unpleasant compared with the dazzling whiteness of the nickel deposit.

    Scientific American Supplement, No. 586, March 26, 1887 Various

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