carnation

From Middle French carnation (“person's color or complexion”).

• (UK) IPA^(key): /kɑːˈneɪ.ʃən/
• (US) IPA^(key): /kɑɹˈneɪ.ʃən/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -eɪʃən

carnation (countable and uncountable, plural carnations)

1. (botany) A type of Eurasian plant widely cultivated for its flowers.
   1. originally, Dianthus caryophyllus
   2. other members of genus Dianthus and hybrids
2. The type of flower they bear, originally flesh-coloured, but since hybridizing found in a variety of colours.
3. A rosy pink colour

   carnation:  

   • 1851, Herman Melville, Moby Dick, Chapter 6:

     And the women of New Bedford, they bloom like their own red roses. But roses only bloom in summer; whereas the fine carnation of their cheeks is perennial as sunlight in the seventh heavens.

4. (archaic) The pinkish colors used in art to render human face and flesh

   carnation:  

5. A scarlet colour.

• (plant, flower): clove pink (also called gillyflower), (ancestor of the carnation) Dianthus caryophyllus
• (plant, flower): cottage pink, Dianthus plumarius

carnation (not comparable)

1. Of a rosy pink or red colour.
2. (archaic) Of a human flesh color.

• gypsophila

• Cantorian, Carnotian

From Middle French, possibly from Italian carnagione (“flesh color”), either way from Late Latin carnātiōnem (“fleshiness”) (from Latin carō (“flesh”)), or from a corruption of coronation (from Latin corōnāre (“to crown”), from corōna (“crown”)), because of the flower's use in chaplets or from the toothed crown-like look of the petals.

• IPA^(key): /kaʁ.na.sjɔ̃/

• Audio:

  (file)

carnation f (countable and uncountable, plural carnations)

1. (uncountable) a fleshy pinkish color (not the color of a carnation flower)
2. (countable) skin tone

   Synonym: teint

• “carnation”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

• connaitra, connaîtra