pink

• enPR: pĭngk, IPA^(key): /pɪŋk/

• Audio (UK)

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• Rhymes: -ɪŋk

Pinks: common minnows

Origin unknown.

pink (plural pinks)

1. (regional) The common minnow, Phoxinus phoxinus. [from 15th c.]
2. (regional) A young Atlantic salmon, Salmo salar, before it becomes a smolt; a parr. [from 17th c.]

Borrowed from Middle Dutch pincke.

pink (plural pinks)

1. (now historical) A narrow boat. [from 15th c.]

Probably from Dutch pingelen (“to do fine needlework”) or Low German [Term?]; compare Low German pinken (“hit, peck”) and Pinke (“big needle”).

pink (third-person singular simple present pinks, present participle pinking, simple past and past participle pinked)

1. To decorate a piece of clothing or fabric by adding holes or by scalloping the fringe.
2. To prick with a sword.
   • 1749, Henry Fielding, Tom Jones, Folio Society 1973, page 642:

     ‘Pugh!’ says she, ‘you have pinked a man in a duel, that's all.’

3. To wound by irony, criticism, or ridicule.
4. To choose; to cull; to pick out.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Herbert to this entry?)

pink (plural pinks)

1. A stab.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Grose to this entry?)

Pinks: carnation cultivars

Various shades of pink

Origin unknown; perhaps from the notion of the petals being pinked (Etymology 3, above).

pink (plural pinks)

1. Any of various flowers in the genus Dianthus, sometimes called carnations. [from 16th c.]

   This garden in particular has a beautiful bed of pinks.

2. (dated) A perfect example; excellence, perfection; the embodiment of some quality. [from 16th c.]

   Your hat, madam, is the very pink of fashion.

   • Shakespeare

     the very pink of courtesy

3. The colour of this flower, between red and white; pale red. [from 17th c.]

   My new dress is a wonderful shade of pink.

   pink colour:  

4. Hunting pink; scarlet, as worn by hunters. [from 18th c.]
   • 1928, Siegfried Sassoon, Memoirs of a Fox-Hunting Man, Penguin 2013, page 23:

     I had taken it for granted that there would be people ‘in pink’, but these enormous confident strangers overwhelmed me with the visible authenticity of their brick-red coats.

   • 1986, Michael J O'Shea, James Joyce and Heraldry, SUNY, page 69:

     it is interesting to note the curious legend that the pink of the hunting field is not due to any optical advantage but to an entirely different reason.

5. (snooker) One of the colour balls used in snooker, with a value of 6 points. [from 19th c.]

   Oh dear, he's left himself snookered behind the pink.

6. (slang) An unlettered and uncultured, but relatively prosperous, member of the middle classes; compare babbitt, bourgeoisie.
7. Alternative form of pinko

   My own guess is that there are some pinks in the State Department and in other government departments and agencies, and of course they should be found and ousted; but it seems to me that this can be done without besmirching innocent people and without making such broadside charges that people will lose faith in all government.

   Ben Hibbs

pink (comparative pinker, superlative pinkest)

1. Having a colour between red and white; pale red.
2. Of a fox-hunter's jacket: scarlet.
3. Having conjunctivitis.
4. (obsolete) By comparison to red (communist), describing someone who sympathizes with the ideals of communism without actually being a Russian-style communist: a pinko.
   • 1976, Bhalchandra Pundlik Adarkar, The Future of the Constitution: A Critical Analysis

     The word "socialist" has so many connotations that it can cover almost anything from pink liberalism to red-red communism.

5. (informal) Relating to women or girls.

   pink-collar; pink job

6. (informal) Relating to homosexuals as a group within society.

   the pink economy

   pink dollar; pink pound

pink (third-person singular simple present pinks, present participle pinking, simple past and past participle pinked)

1. (transitive) To turn (a topaz or other gemstone) pink by the application of heat; (more generally) to turn something pink.
   • 1961, Tennessee Williams, The Night of the Iguana, New Directions Publishing, 2009, Act II, page 46,

     They are all nearly nude, pinked and bronzed by the sun.

   • 1985, Carl Sagan, Contact, Simon & Schuster, 1997, Chapter 3, page 57,

     The rabbits, still lining the roadside, but now pinked by dawn, craned their necks to follow her departure.

• (reds) red; blood red, brick red, burgundy, cardinal, carmine, carnation, cerise, cherry, cherry red, Chinese red, cinnabar, claret, crimson, damask, fire brick, fire engine red, flame, flamingo, fuchsia, garnet, geranium, gules, hot pink, incarnadine, Indian red, magenta, maroon, misty rose, nacarat, oxblood, pillar-box red, pink, Pompeian red, poppy, raspberry, red violet, rose, rouge, ruby, ruddy, salmon, sanguine, scarlet, shocking pink, stammel, strawberry, Turkey red, Venetian red, vermillion, vinaceous, vinous, violet red, wine ^{(Category: en:Reds)}

Onomatopoeic.

pink (third-person singular simple present pinks, present participle pinking, simple past and past participle pinked)

1. (of a motor car) To emit a high "pinking" noise, usually as a result of ill-set ignition timing for the fuel used (in a spark ignition engine).

Borrowed from Dutch pinken.

pink (third-person singular simple present pinks, present participle pinking, simple past and past participle pinked)

1. (obsolete) To wink; to blink.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of L'Estrange to this entry?)

pink (not comparable)

1. (obsolete) Half-shut; winking.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Shakespeare to this entry?)

Borrowed from English pink.

pink

1. pink

• IPA^(key): /pɪŋk/

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• Hyphenation: pink
• Rhymes: -ɪŋk

pink m (plural pinken, diminutive pinkje n)

1. pinkie (little finger)

Unknown.

pink m (plural pinken, diminutive pinkje n)

1. one-year-old calf, a bovine yearling

Unknown.

pink m (plural pinken, diminutive pinkje n)

1. a pink (historic coastal fishing boat with one mast, often landed on beaches)

• bij de pinken zijn

• knip

From Middle Low German benk, most likely influenced by Swedish bänk.

pink (genitive pingi, partitive pinki)

1. bench

   Tšaikovski pink

   the Tchaikovsky bench

Borrowed from English pink.

• IPA^(key): /pɪŋk/

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pink (comparative pinker, superlative am pinksten)

1. coloured in a strong shade of pink
   • 2009, Mark Billingham (English text) and Isabella Bruckmaier (translated from English into German), Das Blut der Opfer. Ein Inspector-Thorne-Roman, Goldmann:

     Die unglaublich langen Beine des Mädchens wurden durch Strümpfe und ein pink Tutu betont.

• For paler shades, German does not use pink but rosa.
• Pink is generally declined like a normal adjective: eine pinke Jacke (“a pink jacket”). Some prescriptive grammars and dictionaries like Duden state that declined forms are colloquial and that pink should be invariable (eine pink Jacke). However, such usage is utterly rare and would even strike a great deal of native speakers as ungrammatical. See the various corpora at www.dwds.de, which include hundreds of attestations for the declined forms, but at most a handful for invariable use in attributive position.

pink n (uncountable)

1. (slang) pee

• pinka