pink

pronunciation

How to pronounce pink in British English: UK [pɪŋk] word uk audio image

How to pronounce pink in American English: US [pɪŋk] word us audio image

Noun:

a light shade of red
any of various flowers of plants of the genus Dianthus cultivated for their fragrant flowers
Verb:

make light, repeated taps on a surface
sound like a car engine that is firing too early
cut in a zig-zag pattern with pinking shears, in sewing
Adjective:

of a light shade of red

Word Origin

pink: pink: English has three distinct words pink. The colour term [18] appears to have come, by a bizarre series of twists, from an early Dutch word meaning ‘small’. This was pinck (source also of the colloquial English pinkie ‘little finger’ [19]). It was used in the phrase pinck oogen, literally ‘small eyes’, hence ‘half-closed eyes’, which was borrowed into English and partially translated as pink eyes.It has been speculated that this was a name given to a plant of the species Dianthus, which first emerged in the abbreviated form pink in the 16th century. Many of these plants have pale red flowers, and so by the 18th century pink was being used for ‘pale red’. Pink ‘pierce’ [14], now preserved mainly in pinking shears, is probably of Low German origin (Low German has pinken ‘peck’).And pink (of an engine) ‘make knocking sounds’ [20] is presumably imitative in origin.

pink (n., adj.): 1570s, common name of Dianthus, a garden plant of various colors, of unknown origin. Its use for "pale rose color" first recorded 1733 (pink-coloured is recorded from 1680s), from one of the colors of the flowers. The plant name is perhaps from pink (v.) via notion of "perforated" petals, or from Dutch pink "small" (see pinkie), from the term pinck oogen "half-closed eyes," literally "small eyes," which was borrowed into English (1570s) and may have been used as a name for Dianthus, which sometimes has pale red flowers. The flower meaning led (by 1590s) to a figurative use for "the flower" or finest example of anything (as in Mercutio's "Nay, I am the very pinck of curtesie," Rom. & Jul. II.iv.61). Political noun sense "person perceived as left of center but not entirely radical (i.e. red)" is attested by 1927, but the image dates to at least 1837. Pink slip "discharge notice" is first recorded 1915. To see pink elephants "hallucinate from alcoholism" first recorded 1913 in Jack London's "John Barleycorn."

pink (v.): c. 1200, pungde "pierce, stab," later (early 14c.) "make holes in; spur a horse," of uncertain origin; perhaps from a Romanic stem that also yielded French piquer, Spanish picar (see pike (n.2)). Or perhaps from Old English pyngan and directly from Latin pungere "to prick, pierce" (see pungent). Surviving mainly in pinking shears.