pink

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   A pale red colour, like that of many flowers.

   My new dress is a wonderful shade of pink.

2. 2
   noun

   A garden flower with a sweet smell, related to the carnation.

   This garden has a beautiful bed of pinks along the path.

Appears in

Simplified etymology

Pink as a colour comes from the mid-16th-century name of the dianthus flower. The plant name is uncertain: it may derive from pink eye, meaning a small or half-closed eye, or from the verb pink, meaning to cut a decorative scalloped edge, referring to the petals. The separate early-20th-century verb for the sound of a cooling engine imitates that sound.

* As an English surname, from Old English pinca (“chaffinch”). This would not be a native Germanic inheritance as the expected form would be finc, thus probably borrowed or contaminated from Vulgar Latin *pincio (see French pinson) and its related parallels. * Also as an English surname, from rare Middle English pink (“something small”), presumably related to pinkie. * As a German occupational surname for a blacksmith, from imitative pink(e)pank, after the sound of hammering. * As a Lower Sorbian surname, variant of Pjeńk, see Penk.

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External links

• Google Images
• Cambridge Dictionary
• Wiktionary