Red

Part of speech: adjective

Pronunciation: /ɹɛd/

Definitions

1. A primary color that represents passionate feelings and can symbolize danger or love
2. A bright hue often associated with heat and energy, frequently used in traffic signs and alarms
3. The color characterized by its association with blood and ripe strawberries, seen at one end of the rainbow ; a belief system advocating for social equality and often linked to communism

Etymology: Red is one of the oldest colour words in English, and its ancestors reach back to a root that also gave Latin "ruber" and Greek "erythros," both meaning red. Within Germanic, the adjective shows up as Old English "rēad," and its relatives are spread across the family: German "rot," Dutch "rood," Swedish "röd," and Icelandic "rauður." The Slavic and Baltic languages have cognates too, including Russian "rudyj" and Lithuanian "raudas," so the word's roots are shared across a large part of the Indo-European family. Notably, "red" is also linked to Sanskrit "rudhirá," meaning red or bloody, and to Finnish "rauta," the word for iron, which hints at how closely colour and blood or rust were once associated in these languages. Its ties to the verb "rede" are a separate matter: English also has an archaic verb "rede," meaning to advise or interpret, and the adjective appears to have come out of that same verb's background. The Middle English form "red" carried the colour sense into the modern language without a break.

Synonyms: crimson, scarlet, ruby, vermilion, cherry

Antonyms: blue, green, yellow, purple, black