Incarnadine

(Compiled from various sources)

Incarnadine, \in-KAR-nuh-dyn\, adjective:

1. Having a fleshy pink color.
2. Red; blood-red; of a general red color.

Transitive verb:

1. To make red or crimson - "to make incarnadine," especially to redden.

From Italian incarnatino, which came from the Latin incarnato, something incarnate, made flesh, from in + caro, carn-, "flesh." It is related to carnation, etymologically the flesh-colored flower; incarnate, "in the flesh; made flesh"; and carnal, "pertaining to the body or its appetites."

"You'll...calmly wash those hands incarnadine." - Lord Byron, "Marino Faliero"

"Repose had again incarnadined her cheeks." - Thomas Hardy, "Far from the Madding Crowd"

"The more he scrubbed it, the more it bled. It made the seas incarnadine, he said." - Judy Driscoll, "Biddy takes pink gin to the country dance," Hecate, May 1, 1993

"'Wine! Wine! Wine!/Red wine!' - the Nightingale cries to the Rose/That yellow cheek of hers to incarnadine." - Edward FitzGerald, "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam"

"Captain Dobo opened the castle's wine cellars and broke open the casks for his men, who greeted the sultan's soldiers without first politely wiping the incarnadine wine from their blood-red lips and bearded chins." - Kevin Keating, "Kilroy Was Here!," International Travel News, October 1, 2001