Dyed

Part of speech: verb

Pronunciation: /daɪd/

Definitions

1. The method of altering the color of materials, particularly fabrics, enhances their visual characteristics while introducing new shades or hues
2. Having had color applied through a process that imparts a new shade or tone to a material
3. Describes something whose surface color has been altered by adding pigment or dye substances

Etymology: "Dyed" is the past tense and past participle of "dye", and the verb is built from the noun. The noun "dye" is older than the verb: it came into Middle English as "deye", from Old English "dēah" or "dēag", meaning colour, hue or dye. The verb followed from that noun, descending from Old English "dēagian", so colouring cloth was named before anyone spoke of dyeing it. The deeper story is that the root meant darkness rather than colour. The Proto-West Germanic ancestor "*daugu" meant colour or shade, and it grew from a verb meaning to conceal or be dark. Its relatives show the link clearly: Old English "dēagol" and "dīegle" meant dark, hidden or secret, and "dox" meant dusky. The same family gave us "dusk", so the word for dyeing cloth is related to the word for the fading light of evening.

Synonyms: colored, tinted, stained

Antonyms: undyed, natural