• (RP) IPA: /ˈkɹɪmzən/
• (America) IPA: /ˈkɹɪmzən/, /ˈkɹɪmsən/

crimson

1. A deep, slightly bluish red.

    

   • 1904, Arthur Conan Doyle, “The Adventure of the Priory School” in The Return of Sherlock Holmes,

     To my horror I perceived that the yellow blossoms were all dabbled with crimson.

• French: cramoisi, carmin, pourpre
• German: Purpur, Purpurrot
• Italian: cremisi, granata
• Portuguese: carmim, carmesim
• Russian: мали́новый
• Spanish: carmín, carmesí

crimson

1. Having a deep red colour.
   • 1907, Robert William Chambers, chapter V, in The Younger Set, New York, N.Y.: D. Appleton & Company, OCLC 24962326 ↗:

     Breezes blowing from beds of iris quickened her breath with their perfume; she saw the tufted lilacs sway in the wind, and the streamers of mauve-tinted wistaria swinging, all a-glisten with golden bees; she saw a crimson cardinal winging through the foliage, and amorous tanagers flashing like scarlet flames athwart the pines.

   • 1950, Mervyn Peake, Gormenghast (novel)

     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.

2. Immodest.

• French: cramoisi
• German: purpurn, purpurrot, blutrot (Himmel), dunkelrot, karmesinrot
• Italian: cremisi
• Portuguese: carmim, carmesim
• Russian: мали́новый
• Spanish: carmín, carmesí

• German: lose Sitten

crimson (crimsons, present participle crimsoning; past and past participle crimsoned)

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.
   • circa 1599 William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar (play), Act III, Scene 1,

     Here didst thou fall; and here thy hunters stand,

     Sign’d in thy spoil, and crimson’d in thy lethe.

   • 1811, Jane Austen, Sense and Sensibility, London: Macmillan, 1902, Chapter 28, p. 153,

     Her face was crimsoned over, and she exclaimed, in a voice of the greatest emotion, “Good God! Willoughby, what is the meaning of this? […] ”

   • 1936, William Faulkner, Absalom, Absalom!, New York: Modern Library, 1951, Chapter 5, p. 138,

     […] 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 […]

• kermes
• carmine