sepia - Wiktionary, the free dictionary
English
Noun
sepia (countable and uncountable, plural sepias)
- (uncountable) A dark brown pigment made from the secretions of the cuttlefish. [from 1820s]
- ✤ * Sepia had some use in ancient times as a writing ink, and in modern times has has occasionally been used as a pigment, but it never attained any popularity, as it is extremely fugitive.*1
- (uncountable) A dark, slightly reddish, brown colour.
- ✤ sepia:
- (by extension, countable) A sepia-coloured drawing or photograph.
- (archaic, countable) A cuttlefish. [from 16th c.]
Adjective
sepia (comparative more sepia, superlative most sepia)
- Of a dark reddish-brown colour.
- ✤ * Sepia Delft tiles surrounded the fireplace, their crudely drawn Biblical scenes in faded cyclamen blending with the pinkish pine, while above them, instead of a mantelshelf, there was an archway high enough to form a balcony with slender balusters and a tapestry-hung wall behind.*2
- ✤ Only now did he realise how few colours there had been at the end of the universe. The world had been sepia, drained of colour and light.3
Etymology
Borrowed from Latin sēpia (“cuttlefish”), from Ancient Greek σηπία (sēpía). Cognate with Italian seppia, Portuguese siba, and Spanish sepia.
Pronunciation
Printed 2026-09-15.
(echo:: @ ⌗)
Footnotes
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1930, A[loys] Merz, M[orris] Rea Paul, “Sepia”, in “Notes on Color Names”, in A Dictionary of Color, New York City: McGraw-Hill, page 179: ↩
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1963, Margery Allingham, “Miss Thyrza’s Chair”, in The China Governess: A Mystery, London: Chatto & Windus, →OCLC, page 41: ↩
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1998 November 22, Lance Parkin, “Infinity and Beyond” (chapter 12), in The Infinity Doctors, BBC Books, →ISBN, page 209: ↩