Paint

Part of speech: noun, verb

Pronunciation: /peɪnt/

Definitions

1. A colored liquid or paste applied to surfaces to protect them or change their appearance
2. A viscous substance used to create visual art or decorate surfaces while providing color and texture
3. A liquid composition that transforms surfaces by adding color or a protective layer for artistic or practical purposes

Etymology: Paint is one of the few English words where a Latin verb's past participle became a noun in its own right. Latin "pingere" meant "to paint," and its past participle "pictus" (the source of "picture") passed into Vulgar Latin as "pinctus," then into Old French as "paint," the participle of "paindre." Middle English borrowed the Old French verb "peintier" as "peynten," and the noun followed the verb's participle form into everyday English. The word also displaced native English vocabulary. Old English had "tēafor" for the red-earth pigment and "tēfran" or "tīefran" for the act of painting, along with "mētan" and "mǣlan," which meant to mark with colour. None of these survived as the ordinary word, so the French-derived term took over the whole field of colouring surfaces.

Synonyms: color, pigment, dye, stain, varnish

Antonyms: erase, remove, strip