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Origin uncertain; perhaps from Dutchpincken(“blink”) or the English verb pink from the same source. Perhaps from the notion of the petals being pinked.
Jasper couldn't have known they'd been overheard upstairs, but his little smirk coming and going invited you to guess he'd been up to something. He had the pink of sex about him still.
Magenta, the colour evoked by red and blue light when combined.
1928, Siegfried Sassoon, Memoirs of a Fox-Hunting Man, Penguin, published 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.
(snooker) One of the colour balls used in snooker, coloured pink, with a value of 6 points.
Oh dear, he's left himself snookered behind the pink.
(slang) An unlettered and uncultured, but relatively prosperous, member of the middle classes; compare Babbitt, bourgeoisie.
1981, Edwin R. Bayley, quoting Ben Hibbs, Joe McCarthy and the Press, page 163:
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.
2020 March 23, Mike Hatch, The Dumb Class: Boomer Junior High, Mike Hatch H&A Publishing, →ISBN, page 78:
Then Eddie did what he calls, 'Two in the pink, one in the stink.' “I held up my right forefinger and middle finger and said, “Two.” Then I held up my ring finger and said “One. Two in the pussy, one in the ass.”
The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
1991 August 24, Lori Nairne, “Whose Parade Is It, Anyway?”, in Gay Community News, volume 19, number 6, page 5:
The lesbian and gay movement must decide whether the Parade is for celebrating how far we've come as we further our struggle for liberation, or whether it is going to be just another profit-making industry, supporting lesbian and gay careerism and becoming part of the Establishment (albeit a pink one!)
The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
The rabbits, still lining the roadside, but now pinked by dawn, craned their necks to follow her departure.
(transitive) To turn (a topaz or other gemstone) pink by the application of heat.
2012, David Federman, Modern Jeweler’s Consumer Guide to Colored Gemstones, page 227:
Because heating is relatively easy to perform once one is trained to do it, it can be assumed that any pink topaz from Brazil, the gem’s main modern producer, is colored more by man than nature.[…] Relatively few stones from Brazil have this trace element in enough quantity for what dealers call “pinking.”
Within three seconds D'Artagnan pinked him thrice, dedicating each thrust as he dealt it. “One for Athos!" he cried. “One for Porthos!" and at the last, “one for Aramis!”
“Young man, if you have no authority, let me speak to someone who has! Put me through to Mr. Berquist.” The stooge suddenly lost his smile and Jubal thought gleefully that he had at last pinked him.
1692, Roger L'Estrange, “A Fox and a Cock”, in Fables of Aesop and Other Eminent Mythologists, page 409:
A Hungry Fox that had got a Cock in his Eye, and could not tell how to come at him ; cast himself at his Length upon the Ground, and there he lay winking and pinking as if he had Sore Eyes.
1816, Pierre François Tingry, The Painter and Varnisher's Guide, page 245:
To make Dutch pink, boil the stems of woad in a solution of alum, and then mix the liquor with clay, marl, or chalk, which will become mixed with the colour of the decoction
Carlyle (2001) lists from her study of nineteenth century British documentary sources yellow carmine, Dutch pink, English pink and yellow lake in descending order of intensity.
Of obscure origin. Sometimes compared to Etymology 2 and 3 below in the sense of "something small." Perhaps related to pin or otherwise borrowed from a substrate language with unshifted p-.
From Middle Dutchpinke, of unkown origin. Connections to Etymology 1 above ("pinkie") in the sense of "elongated object" remain purely hypothetical. Compare Proto-West Germanic*pinnā.
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 very 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.