pinker

Pluralpinkers

1. 1
   adjective

   Comparative of pink.

   Her cheeks grew pinker with each compliment.

   The roses on the left are pinker than those by the gate.

   Note

   A short color word like pink usually takes the -er ending, so pinker is the normal comparative, though more pink also occurs. It can compare any gradable sense of pink: a blush deepening, or, in politics, a view leaning closer to socialist ideas without reaching red. Only the noun takes a plural, pinkers. the person who pinks shares this spelling but is built on the verb instead.

2. 2
   nouncountable

   A person who pinks, in any of several senses of the verb, especially one who cuts cloth with a notched or zigzag edge.

   The pinker finished the seams so the raw edges would not unravel.

   A good pinker could trim a stack of collars without leaving a frayed thread.

   Note

   In the garment trade, this was a job title as much as a description, and pinking was paid as separate work. Leigh David Benin's The New Labor Radicalism and New York City's Garment Industry (2000) tells of a worker hired at $65 a week who was told that pinkers earned only $50. Used this way, the word names a grade of labor on a pay scale, not just anyone who happens to pink a seam.

Showing meanings only. Show all 2