scarlet
Americannoun
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a bright-red color inclining toward orange.
-
cloth or clothing of this color.
adjective
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of the color scarlet.
-
flagrantly offensive.
Their sins were scarlet.
noun
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a vivid red colour, sometimes with an orange tinge
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cloth or clothing of this colour
adjective
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of the colour scarlet
-
sinful or immoral, esp unchaste
Etymology
Origin of scarlet
1200–50; Middle English < Old French escarlate < Medieval Latin scarlata, scarletum, perhaps < Arabic saqirlāṭ, siqillāṭ < Medieval Greek sigillátos < Latin sigillātus decorated with patterns in relief; sigillate
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.
Her parents took her to Prince Charles Hospital, Merthyr Tydfil, but doctors initially thought she had scarlet fever or Strep A, and sent her home, according to her parents.
From BBC • Mar. 26, 2026
In the film, Huppert's countess character returns to life in a scarlet red funeral barge sailing into in the Seegrotte, an underground Viennese lake popular with tourists.
From Barron's • Feb. 18, 2026
Studies show that ʻiʻiwi, also known as the scarlet honeycreeper, face a mortality rate of about 90 percent if infected.
From Science Daily • Feb. 11, 2026
Her prose is exact and exquisite, as when describing Clare: “The soft white face, the bright hair, the disturbing scarlet mouth, the dreaming eyes, the caressing smile, the whole torturing loveliness.”
From The Wall Street Journal • Jan. 23, 2026
I had been far too shy to ask the teacher what it meant, and Mama had blushed scarlet when I consulted her.
From "The Hiding Place" by Corrie ten Boom
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.
