''crimson'' ▫ᴱᴺ Entries

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''crimson'' ▫ᴱᴺ｜Definition｜1st｜20260727004347-00-⌔

crimson - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

Noun

crimson (countable and uncountable, plural crimsons)

• A deep, slightly bluish red.
  • ✤ crimson:
  • ✤ To my horror I perceived that the yellow blossoms were all dabbled with crimson.¹

Adjective

crimson (comparative more crimson, superlative most crimson)

• Having a deep red colour.
  • ✤ 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
  • ✤ Her crimson dress inflames grey corridors, or flaring in a sunshaft through high branches makes of the deep green shadows a greenness darker yet, and a darkness greener.³
• Immodest.

Verb

crimson (third-person singular simple present crimsons, present participle crimsoning, simple past and past participle crimsoned)

• (intransitive) To become crimson or deep red; to blush.
  • ✤ Eugenie’s quick apprehensions seized the foul thought. Her eyes flashed—her cheek crimsoned.⁴
  • ✤ Father. Why do you look so gravely at the tower?⁵
  • ✤ Gerty MacDowell bent down her head and crimsoned at the idea of Cissy saying an unladylike thing like that out loud she’d be ashamed of her life to say, flushing a deep rosy red, and Edy Boardman said she was sure the gentleman opposite heard what she said. But not a pin cared Ciss.⁶
• ✤ Miram. I never saw it yet so all ablaze
• ✤ With creepers crimsoning to the pinnacles,
• (transitive) To dye with crimson or deep red; to redden.
  • ✤ Here didst thou fall; and here thy hunters stand,
    Sign’d in thy spoil, and crimson’d in thy lethe.⁷
  • ✤ Her face was crimsoned over, and she exclaimed, in a voice of the greatest emotion, “Good God! Willoughby, what is the meaning of this? […]”⁸
  • ✤ […] that sheetless bed (that nuptial couch of love and grief) with the pale and bloody corpse in its patched and weathered gray crimsoning the bare mattress […]⁹

Etymology

📊 ➺

Late Middle English cremesyn, from obsolete French cramoisin or Old Spanish cremesín, from Arabic قِرْمِز (qirmiz), from Classical Persian کرمست (kirmist), from Middle Persian; see Proto-Indo-Iranian ﹡kŕ̥miš. Cognate with Sanskrit कृमिज (kṛmija). Doublet of kermes; also see carmine.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA: /ˈkɹɪmzən/
• Audio (Southern England): 🔊
• (General American) IPA: /ˈkɹɪmzən/, /ˈkɹɪmsən/
• Rhymes: -ɪmzən, -ɪmsən

Printed 2026-07-27.

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Footnotes

1. 1904 January 30, A[rthur] Conan Doyle, “The Adventure of the Priory School”, in The Return of Sherlock Holmes, New York, N.Y.: McClure, Phillips & Co., published February 1905, →OCLC: ↩

2. 1907 August, Robert W[illiam] Chambers, “Afterglow”, in The Younger Set, New York, N.Y.: D. Appleton & Company, →OCLC, page 168: ↩

3. 1950, Mervyn Peake, Gormenghast: ↩

4. 1841, [Edward Bulwer-Lytton], chapter XIII, in Night and Morning […], volume, London: Saunders and Otley, […], →OCLC: ↩

5. 1885, Alfred, Lord Tennyson, “The Ring” in The Poetical Works of Alfred, Lord Tennyson, New York and Boston: Thomas Y. Crowell & Co., Volume 2, p. 662,${}^{[1]}$ ↩

6. 1922 February, James Joyce, “[13]”, in Ulysses, Paris: Shakespeare and Company, […], →OCLC: ↩

7. 1599 (first performance), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Iulius Cæsar”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene i]: ↩

8. 1811, [Jane Austen], Sense and Sensibility […], volume, London: […] C[harles] Roworth, […], and published by T[homas] Egerton, […], →OCLC, page 153: ↩

9. 1936, William Faulkner, chapter 5, in Absalom, Absalom! ‎${}^{[2]}$, New York: Modern Library, published 1951, page 138: ↩

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