sepia

[ see-pee-uh ]

/ ˈsi pi ə /

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noun

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.

adjective

of a brown, grayish brown, or olive brown similar to that of sepia ink.

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Origin of sepia

1560–70; <Latin sēpia cuttlefish, its secretion <Greek sēpía; akin to sêpsissepsis

OTHER WORDS FROM sepia

se·pi·a·like, adjectivese·pic

[see-pik, sep-ik], /ˈsi pɪk, ˈsɛp ɪk/, adjective

Words nearby sepia

Seph., Sephardi, Sephardim, Sepharvites, Sepher Torah, sepia, Sepik, sepiolite, sepmag, sepn., sepoy

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

How to use sepia in a sentence

Another upside of Readability mode is that you can also apply light, dark, and sepia themes, tweak things like font, text width, and line height, and use a slider to apply a greyscale layer to the page to reduce contrast.
Transform the face of the internet with these 5 Firefox extensions|Sandra Gutierrez G.|January 16, 2022|Popular-Science
A garnish isn’t required, but some chopped scallions, scattered on top, takes dinner from sepia to special.
The food critic gets critiqued: What Tom Sietsema learned in a year of pandemic home cooking|Tom Sietsema|July 14, 2021|Washington Post
A sepia photo shows him as a young boy, head in his hands, with a large book open at a bar table.
The Bars That Made America Great|Nina Strochlic|December 28, 2014|DAILY BEAST
Painting Moominvalley in sepia to save print costs in The Great Flood, Jansson somehow makes it a riot of imagined color.
Tove Jansson, Queen of the Moomins|John Garth|August 9, 2014|DAILY BEAST

Each of those women had a sepia photograph on the mantelpiece, of a young man in uniform.
The Tragic, Heroic Women of World War I|Jacqueline Winspear|June 29, 2014|DAILY BEAST
Both play within a relatively constrained color palette rich in sepia yellow, with strategic daubs of sky blue and red.
You Can Indeed Judge a Book By Its Cover|Brian Gresko|November 20, 2013|DAILY BEAST
With a book about Jane Franklin and her life of letters to her brother Benjamin, sepia yellow connotes yellowing papers.
You Can Indeed Judge a Book By Its Cover|Brian Gresko|November 20, 2013|DAILY BEAST
We were, apparently, a beacon in that sepia waste where modern undersea monsters were lurking.
A Traveller in War-Time|Winston Churchill
Four, five or six eggs are laid; these are of a pale greenish-blue hue, speckled or flaked with sepia markings.
A Bird Calendar for Northern India|Douglas Dewar
Fanning the bills out like a hand of cards he stared at their sepia and gold faces, trying to get the reality through his head.
Deathworld|Harry Harrison
Aquatint, a method of etching on copper by which a beautiful effect is produced, resembling a fine drawing in sepia or Indian ink.
The New Gresham Encyclopedia. Vol. 1 Part 2|Various
Whistler showed him "several examples done with the brush in sepia, in old French or Spanish styles," whatever this may mean.
The Life of James McNeill Whistler|Elizabeth Robins Pennell

British Dictionary definitions for sepia

sepia

/ (ˈsiːpɪə) /

noun

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

adjective

of the colour sepia or done in sepiaa sepia print

Word Origin for sepia

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 Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

sepia

Origin of sepia

OTHER WORDS FROM sepia

Words nearby sepia

Words related to sepia

How to use sepia in a sentence

British Dictionary definitions for sepia

Word Origin for sepia