sepia
[see-pee-uh]
- a brown pigment obtained from the inklike secretion of various cuttlefish and used with brush or pen in drawing.
- a drawing made with this pigment.
- a dark brown.
- Photography. a print or photograph made in this color.
- any of several cuttlefish of the genus Sepia, producing a dark fluid used naturally for defense and, by humans, in ink.
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- of a brown, grayish brown, or olive brown similar to that of sepia ink.
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Origin of sepia
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018
Related Words
fawngingertantoastamberbricknutbuffcoffeedrabdustbronzebayecrubeigerustcoppercinnamonrussetpuceExamples from the Web for sepia
Contemporary Examples
A sepia photo shows him as a young boy, head in his hands, with a large book open at a bar table.
Painting Moominvalley in sepia to save print costs in The Great Flood, Jansson somehow makes it a riot of imagined color.
Each of those women had a sepia photograph on the mantelpiece, of a young man in uniform.
Both play within a relatively constrained color palette rich in sepia yellow, with strategic daubs of sky blue and red.
With a book about Jane Franklin and her life of letters to her brother Benjamin, sepia yellow connotes yellowing papers.
Historical Examples
This sulphide will give tones which are sepia brown with most papers.
Bromide Printing and EnlargingJohn A. Tennant
The natural was made from a black earth, or from the secretion of the cuttle-fish, sepia.
Museum of AntiquityL. W. Yaggy
All derived from cuttle-fish varieties of sepia used for baits.
The Sailor's Word-BookWilliam Henry Smyth
This food is chiefly the Squid or Sepia octopus, known also by the name of the cuttle-fish.
Old JackW.H.G. Kingston
That a sepia photograph of the Coliseum, framed, is a work of art.
The American CredoGeorge Jean Nathan
sepia
- a dark reddish-brown pigment obtained from the inky secretion of the cuttlefish
- any cuttlefish of the genus Sepia
- a brownish tone imparted to a photograph, esp an early one such as a calotype. It can be produced by first bleaching a print (after fixing) and then immersing it for a short time in a solution of sodium sulphide or of alkaline thiourea
- a brownish-grey to dark yellowish-brown colour
- a drawing or photograph in sepia
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- of the colour sepia or done in sepiaa sepia print
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Word Origin
C16: from Latin: a cuttlefish, from Greek; related to Greek sēpein to make rotten
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition
© William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
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Word Origin and History for sepia
n.
"rich brown pigment," 1821, from Italian seppia "cuttlefish" (borrowed with that meaning in English by 1560s), from Latin sepia "cuttlefish," from Greek sepia "cuttlefish," related to sepein "to make rotten" (cf. sepsis). The color was that of brown paint or ink prepared from the fluid secretions of the cuttlefish. Meaning "a sepia drawing" is recorded from 1863.
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Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper