scarlet

See also: Scarlet and Scarlett

English

Etymology

From Middle English scarlet, scarlat, borrowed from Old French escarlate (“a type of cloth”), from Medieval Latin scarlatum (“scarlet cloth”). This was long thought to derive from Persian سقرلات‎ (saqerlât, “a warm woollen cloth”), but the Persian word (first attested in the 1290s) is now thought to be from Arabic siklāt (later siklātūn), denoting very expensive, luxury silks dyed scarlet-red using the exceptionally expensive dye, first attested around the ninth century, and now thought also to be the origin of the Persian word. The origin of the word siklāt is itself uncertain and may come from the Late Roman term sigillatus (Latin)/σιγιλλατον (Greek), denoting a kind of cloth decorated with patterns (from Latin sigillum 'seal'). The word then came to be used of woollen cloth dyed with the same dye. The most obvious route for the Arabic word siklāt to have entered the Romance languages would be via the Arabic-speaking Iberian region of Al-Andalus, particularly Almería, where kermes was produced extensively.[1]

Pronunciation

Noun

scarlet (plural scarlets)

  1. A bright red, slightly orange colour.
    scarlet colour:  
  2. Cloth of a scarlet color.
    • Bible, Proverbs xxxi. 21
      All her household are clothed with scarlet.

Synonyms

Translations

The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables, removing any numbers. Numbers do not necessarily match those in definitions. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout#Translations.

Adjective

scarlet (comparative more scarlet, superlative most scarlet)

  1. Of a bright red colour.
    • 1907, Robert William Chambers, chapter V, in The Younger Set (Project Gutenberg; EBook #14852), New York, N.Y.: D. Appleton & Company, published 1 February 2005 (Project Gutenberg version), OCLC 24962326:
      Breezes blowing from beds of iris quickened her breath with their perfume; she saw the tufted lilacs sway in the wind, and the streamers of mauve-tinted wistaria swinging, all a-glisten with golden bees; she saw a crimson cardinal winging through the foliage, and amorous tanagers flashing like scarlet flames athwart the pines.
  2. Sinful or whorish.
    a scarlet woman

Derived terms

Translations

The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables, removing any numbers. Numbers do not necessarily match those in definitions. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout#Translations.

See also

Verb

scarlet (third-person singular simple present scarlets, present participle scarleting, simple past and past participle scarleted)

  1. To dye or tinge with scarlet.
    • Ford
      The ashy paleness of my cheek / Is scarleted in ruddy flakes of wrath.

References

  1. ↑ John Munro, “”, in Encyclopaedia of Medieval Dress and Textiles of the British Isles c. 450-1450, ed. by Gale Owen-Crocker, Elizabeth Coatsworth and Maria Hayward (Leiden: Brill, 2012).

Anagrams

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