scarlet

Meanings

Noun

• A brilliant red colour tinged with orange.
• Cloth of a scarlet color.

Adjective

• Of a bright red colour.
• Sinful or whorish.
• (Ireland) Mortified or embarrassed (referring to blushing).

Verb

• To dye or tinge with scarlet.

Related

Similar words

• scarlet red

Origin

• From Middle English scarlet, scarlat, borrowed from Old French escarlate ("a type of cloth"), from Medieval Latin scarlatum. This was long thought to derive from Persian سقرلات ("a warm woollen cloth"), but the Persian word (first attested in the 1290s) is now thought to be from Arabic سِقِلَّات, denoting very expensive, luxury silks dyed scarlet-red using the exceptionally expensive dye, first attested around the ninth century. The most obvious route for the Arabic word siqillāt to have entered the Romance languages would be via the Arabic-speaking Iberian region of Al-Andalus, particularly Almería, where kermes was produced extensively. The word then came to be used of woollen cloth dyed with the same dye.