incarnadine

Definition

Of the pale pink or pale red colour of flesh; carnation.

Etymology

The adjective is derived from French incarnadin, incarnadine, from Italian incarnadino, a variant of incarnatino (“carnation; flesh colour”), from incarnato (“embodied, incarnate”) + -ino (suffix forming adjectives denoting composition, colour, or other qualities). Incarnato is derived from Ecclesiastical Latin and Late Latin incarnātus (“having been made incarnate”), the perfect passive participle of incarnō (“to become or make incarnate; to make into flesh”), from in- (suffix meaning ‘in, inside, within’) + Latin carō (“flesh, meat; body”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *(s)ker- (“to cut off”)) + -ō (suffix forming regular first-conjugation verbs). The noun and verb are derived from the adjective. Adjective senses 2 and 3 (“of the blood-red colour of raw flesh; (figurative) bloostained, bloody”) and noun sense 2 (“blood-red colour of raw flesh”) are due to William Shakespeare’s use of the word as a verb in Macbeth (c. 1606): see the quotation below.

Example Sentences

• "Incarnadine, or Incarnate, that is of a bright Carnation or Fleſh Colour, or of the Colour of a Damask-Roſe."
• "Wild and dishevelled, thy luxuriant hair / Falls scattered o'er thy throbbing bosom, fair / As snow incarnadine with morning's ray;— [...]"
• "The bandages on his hands – cerise and incarnadine, opalescent and viridian – were grotesqueries that only emphasised his stature."