dye
- 1A coloring substance, especially one that bonds to the material it is applied to.
Like ink spreading into paper and refusing to wash back out.
The fabric absorbed the dye evenly across its whole surface.
Natural dyes from plants tend to fade faster than synthetic ones.
Similarcolorant, stain, tint, pigment, coloring
Note
What sets a dye apart from other colorants is affinity: it takes hold of the material it colors rather than simply resting on it. That is why the word belongs to both art and liquid coloring. It is countable and uncountable. You can speak of a dye for each shade or of dye bought by the bottle, and the plural dyes usually means different kinds.
- 2To color something with dye, or in a way that resembles coloring with dye.
They dye the raw yarn in large vats before weaving it.
Years of sunlight had dyed the old curtains a faded yellow.
Similarcolor, tint, stain, tinge
Oppositebleach
Note
A verb made from the noun in Old English, dēagian. Its one trap is spelling: the participle is dyeing, keeping the e, while dying is nonstandard and collides with the participle of die. It works with or without an object (those who dye often) and figuratively, as when Richard Ellis's The Book of Sharks (1983) pictures the oceans dyed crimson.
- 3A hue or shade of color of any kind.
Wild birds of every dye crowded around the feeder that winter morning.
Beneath the stream, the pebbles showed a deep amber dye that faded as soon as they dried.
Similarhue, color, shade, tint
Note
A meaning as old as the word itself: Old English dēah covered "color, hue" as well as the coloring substance. Behind it lies a Germanic root meaning "to conceal, be dark" and an Indo-European one for smoke, dust and camouflage. Here the word names the color rather than what produces it, as in birds of every dye, and it works much like hue or shade.
Less common meaning
- 4Archaic spelling of die.
If a dye were marked with one figure or number of spots on four sides, and with another figure or number of spots on the two remaining sides, it would be more probable, that the former would turn up than the latter;
1748, David Hume, Enquiries concerning the human understanding and concerning the principles of moral.The Superficies was compoſed of ſeveral bits of Wood, about the bigneſs of a Dye, but ſome larger than others.
1726, [Jonathan Swift], “The Author Permitted to See the Grand Academy of Lagado.”Note
Swift and Hume both wrote dye for the gaming cube. Swift in 1726 compares bits of wood to "the bigness of a Dye," and Hume in 1748 reasons about which marked side will turn up. The two words are unrelated and once shared a spelling, so a dye in an old text may be a die. Today the spelling belongs to coloring alone, and the cube is a die.
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Practice
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Origins
From Middle English deye, from Old English dēah, dēag ("color, hue, dye"), from Proto-West Germanic *daugu, from a root meaning "to conceal" or "be dark," ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *dʰewh₂- ("to smoke, raise dust, camouflage"). It is related to Old English dēagol ("dark, hidden, secret").
From Middle English deien, from Old English dēagian, which was formed from the noun dēag ("dye").