crimson

Etymology

PIE word *kʷŕ̥mis Late Middle English cremesyn, from obsolete French cramoisin or Old Spanish cremesin, 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.

noun

1. A deep, slightly bluish red.
   crimson:

adj

1. Having a deep red colour.
   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. 1950, Mervyn Peake, Gormenghast
2. Immodest.

verb

1. (intransitive) To become crimson or deep red; to blush.
   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, Father. Why do you look so gravely at the tower? Miram. I never saw it yet so all ablaze With creepers crimsoning to the pinnacles,
2. (transitive) To dye with crimson or deep red; to redden.
   […] 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 […] 1936, William Faulkner, chapter 5, in Absalom, Absalom!, New York: Modern Library, published 1951, page 138