crimson
/ˈkrɪmz(ə)n
/adjective
Of a rich deep red colour inclining to purple: she blushed crimson with embarrassment...
- The tree was covered in deep crimson flowers and filled with bright red papers.
- The stone's value comes from its intense purple and crimson colour.
- He succeeded in breeding a particularly bright crimson variety of the flower.
noun [mass noun]
A rich deep red colour inclining to purple: a pair of corduroy trousers in livid crimson, they were horrid to behold...
- The artist's palette encompasses earthy, weather worn colours, rich burnished crimsons and flashes of red.
- Watt bought some red roses for herself and began to make a series of images - folds of material painted in deep crimson, the colour of roses, or of blood.
- The world around him resonated with the color of the man's eyes, turning everything a deep hue of crimson.
verb [no object]
(Of a person’s face) become flushed, especially through embarrassment: my face crimsoned and my hands began to shake...
- Her face crimsoning with fury, Isabella suddenly turned away from her friend and quickened her pace down the road.
- No matter how she blushed or crimsoned, most people who gathered at the Fine Arts Hall seemed to have enjoyed the judge's faux pas.
- ‘Oh, they say everyone has,’ she says, crimsoning.
Origin
Late Middle English: from obsolete French cramoisin or Old Spanish cremesin, based on Arabic qirmizī, from qirmiz (see kermes). Compare with carmine.
The colour crimson was originally a deep red dye used in colouring fine cloth and velvet and obtained from an insect called the kermes (late 16th century), whose body was dried and ground up to produce the dye. The name of the insect came ultimately from Arabic qirmiz. See also ingrain, purple, vermilion