DictionaryAI

pink

PINGK/pɪŋk/

Adjectivepinker, pinkest

Noun pluralpinks

Verbpinks, pinking, pinked

29 meanings of pink

Practice

  1. 1
    pale redadjective
    Pale red in color, as flushed cheeks or undercooked meat can be.

    The chicken was still pink in the middle, so we put it back in the oven.

    Her cheeks flushed pink in the cold morning air.

    Similarrosy, rose

  2. 2
    nouncountable or uncountable
    A color between red and white, ranging from pale red to bright reddish purple.

    She chose a warm pink for the walls of the spare room.

    The artist blended white into red until she had the gentle pink she wanted.

  3. 3
    verbintransitive
    To become pink, or to make something pink.

    As the sun rose, the snow on the mountaintops slowly pinked, then turned gold.

    His ears pink whenever someone teases him in public.

    Similarredden, flush, blush, color

  4. 4
    adjectivecolloquial
    Associated with women or girls, especially in marketing and social roles.

    Despite her degree, she felt trapped in the pink ghetto of low-paid office jobs usually given to women.

    Many parents now skip the pink aisle and let their daughters choose toys from anywhere in the store.

    UsageUsually before a noun, in phrases like pink-collar jobs, the pink aisle or the pink tax.

    Similargirly, feminine

    Note

    Mostly found in fixed combinations before a noun, such as pink-collar work or a pink job. Pink-collar follows the pattern of blue-collar and white-collar, marking a kind of work as women's territory. Where the word could also point to the gay community, only context decides which is meant.

    Checked 31 Oct 2026 · 2 facts

    • Pink-collar was formed by analogy with existing collar-based occupational terms. en.wiktionary.org
    • Pink-collar identifies occupations traditionally associated with women. oecd.org

Practice

Can you tell the meanings of pink apart? Answer 3 quick questions from this page, or write your own sentence and AI will check it.

Origins

Meanings 1–9, 11, 14–18

The color is named after the garden flowers called pinks (Dianthus), which had the name in the 16th century, about a century before the color did. The flower name itself is uncertain, perhaps from the verb pink, 'to cut a zigzag edge,' for the frilled petals, or from Dutch pinken, 'to blink.'

Checked 1 Nov 2026 · 6 facts

  • The colour name comes from pinks, flowers in the genus Dianthus. en.wikipedia.org
  • The flower name was in use in the sixteenth century. gutenberg.org
  • The colour use followed roughly a century later, in the seventeenth century. blog.metmuseum.org
  • The flower name has an uncertain origin, with Dutch pinken, meaning 'to blink', proposed as one possibility. en.wiktionary.org
  • Another proposed origin connects the flower name with its frilled petals and the verb pink. en.wikipedia.org
  • The verb pink can mean cutting a decorative edge. en.wiktionary.org
Meanings 10, 13, 19, 21–22

Most likely the word is imitative at bottom. It may instead come from a Low German source or from Dutch pingelen, meaning to do fine needlework. For comparison, Low German has pinken ("hit, peck") and Pinke ("big needle").

Checked 1 Nov 2026 · 5 facts

Meanings 12, 20

Onomatopoeic, comparable to ping.

Checked 1 Nov 2026 · 2 facts