Maroon

Part of speech: verb

Pronunciation: /məˈɹuːn/

Definitions

1. A deep reddish-brown hue that can also refer to the act of leaving someone stranded in a remote area without means of escape
2. A color characterized by a dark reddish-brown shade as well as the action of deserting an individual in an uninhabited location
3. A shade of red tinged with brown that gives a rich, deep hue ; to leave a person isolated in an inaccessible or deserted place

Etymology: Marooning was once a real punishment at sea: a crew left an unwanted sailor on a deserted shore, sometimes a rocky beach with a ship sailing away, and the verb grew from that practice. The word traces back to Spanish "cimarrón," meaning fugitive, wild or feral, which passed into French as "marron" and then into English. Spanish colonists used the term for enslaved Africans who escaped into the hills and forests of the Caribbean, and the English word inherited that sense of being cut off from others. The English verb is recorded in the eighteenth century, and by the nineteenth it was firmly tied to the image of the castaway on a lonely shore. Its exact path from the French adjective is unclear, and some have linked it to the idea of a castaway, while others suggest the red colour of a signal flare. Those explanations remain uncertain.

Synonyms: abandon, desert, leave, stranded, isolated

Antonyms: rescue, save, retrieve, recover, redeem