incarnadine
Americanadjective
-
blood-red; crimson.
-
flesh-colored; pale pink.
noun
verb (used with object)
verb
adjective
Etymology
Origin of incarnadine
1585–95; < Middle French, feminine of incarnadin flesh-colored < Italian incarnatino, equivalent to incarnat ( o ) made flesh ( see incarnate) + -ino -ine 1; see carnation
Explanation
The verb incarnadine literally means "to make the color of flesh," although it's more commonly used to mean "to redden." The first use of incarnadine as a verb is in Shakespeare's Macbeth, when Macbeth talks about the blood on his hands in Act 2, Scene 2. He says, "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." Macbeth means that there is not enough water in the sea to cleanse his hands, but instead the blood on them will stain the ocean red.
Vocabulary lists containing incarnadine
Body Language: Carn ("Flesh")
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"The Tragedy of Macbeth," Vocabulary from Act 2
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
The result bore an uncanny resemblance to ham: the surface dark, the interior incarnadine, the flesh easy to cut into meaty slices.
From New York Times ● Aug. 24, 2020
The word "incarnadine", for example is much touted as a Shakespeare coinage, but did it really catch on?
From The Guardian ● Jul. 23, 2010
Last week a suppressed flair for a style more incarnadine and virile apparently overcame him.
From Time Magazine Archive
Just inside the entrance, the incarnadine exclamation of a Poiret dress laps a female figure like ripples on a lakeshore.
From Time Magazine Archive
When the incarnadine embers of sunrise glowed in the east, the Missourians stood on the battlements and surveyed their domain.
From The Missourian by Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
That mouth has been incarnadined in the deepest red, so it seems to have an autonomous life that’s at odds with the cool, pale skin that surrounds it.
From New York Times ● Mar. 8, 2019
The Dunmore, rigged and coursed with smoke like some spirit vessel, cast volleys of flame through its entanglements of cloud, and all its gray was incarnadined with fire.
From "The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Volume II: The Kingdom on the Waves" by M.T. Anderson
Beyond her, it smote upon and incarnadined the shining, white, grassless faces of the sand dunes.
From Anne's House of Dreams by L. M. (Lucy Maud) Montgomery
In the sunset that night, as he and Stella sat in the drawing-room staring over the incarnadined river, Michael told his sister of his discovery.
From Sinister Street, vol. 2 by Compton MacKenzie
"Pauline," he cried, flinging high his bunch of ragged-robins to scatter upon the incarnadined air, "I have never loved you as I love you now."
From Plashers Mead A Novel by Compton MacKenzie
The hateful stream continued to pump forth from the cut, incarnadining the muddy road, and in despair she took Pilot by the head and began to lead him down the hill towards the valley.
From All on the Irish Shore Irish Sketches by E. Oe. (Edith Oenone) Somerville
Oh, more than ever, now I sometimes think no poetry is read Save where some sepultured Caesura bled, Royally incarnadining all the line.
From The Collected Poems of Rupert Brooke by Rupert Brooke
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
