• IPA: /steɪn/

stain (plural stains)

1. A discoloured spot or area.
2. A blemish on one's character or reputation.
3. A substance used to soak into a surface and colour it.
4. A reagent or dye used to stain microscope specimens so as to make some structures visible.
5. (heraldry) Any of a number of non-standard tinctures used in modern heraldry.

• French: tache
• German: Fleck
• Italian: macchia, chiazza, patacca (figuratively)
• Portuguese: nódoa, mancha, mácula
• Russian: пятно́
• Spanish: mancha, lamparón (colloquial; on clothing - esp. from sweat or grease)

• French: souillure
• German: Schandfleck
• Russian: пятно́
• Spanish: tacha

• French: colorant
• Russian: кра́ска
• Spanish: colorante

• Spanish: contraste

stain (stains, present participle staining; past and past participle stained)

1. (transitive) To discolour.

   to stain the hand with dye

   armour stained with blood

2. To taint or tarnish someone's character or reputation
   • 1667, John Milton, “Book 8”, in Paradise Lost. A Poem Written in Ten Books, London: Printed [by Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […] [a]nd by Robert Boulter […] [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], OCLC 228722708 ↗; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: The Text Exactly Reproduced from the First Edition of 1667: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, OCLC 230729554 ↗:

     of Honour void,
     Of Innocence, of Faith, of Puritie,
     Our wonted Ornaments now soild and staind

3. To coat a surface with a stain

   to stain wood with acids, coloured washes, paint rubbed in, etc.

   the stained glass used for church windows

4. (intransitive) To become stained; to take a stain.
5. (transitive, cytology) To treat (a microscopic specimen) with a dye, especially one that dyes specific features
6. To cause to seem inferior or soiled by comparison.
   • c. 1607–1611, Francis Beaumont; John Fletcher, “Cupid’s Revenge”, in Comedies and Tragedies […], London: Printed for Humphrey Robinson, […], and for Humphrey Moseley […], published 1679, OCLC 3083972 ↗, Act 2, scene 2:

     She stains the ripest virgins of her age.

   • that did all other beasts in beauty stain

• Russian: па́чкать

• French: entacher
• German: beflecken
• Italian: macchiare, intaccare
• Russian: запятнать
• Spanish: mancillar

• German: beizen
• Italian: mordenzare
• Russian: кра́сить

• French: colorer
• Italian: colorare
• Portuguese: corar, colorar, colorir
• Spanish: colorear