ink
/ˈɪŋk/
Word Rarity
Uncommon
Frequency: 4.07 in modern English
7
Scrabble Score
3
Letters
1
Syllables
3
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
The black or dark-colored fluid ejected by squid, octopus etc, as a protective strategy.
Uncountable
Example Sentences
- "This form should be filled out in ink."
- "While I was waiting for him in the Matted Gallery, a young man was most finely working in Indian inke the great picture of the King and Queen sitting [Charles I of England and Henrietta Maria of France], by Van Dyke [Anthony van Dyck]; and did it very finely."
- "Both halves feature lyrics that are so teen-girly they sound like they were written in pink ink in a padlocked diary with hearts and frowny faces for punctuation."
- "Experimentally, some ink has been shown to be unpalatable to fish (Wood et al. 2010) and observationally, ink can also function as an attractant to predators to give cephalopods a bit more time to escape."
- "to get ink"
- "The TSA has been getting a lot of ink lately."
Etymology
From Middle English ynke, from Old French enque, from Latin encaustum (“purple ink used by Roman emperors to sign documents”), from Ancient Greek ἔγκαυστον (énkauston, “burned-in”), from ἐν (en, “in”) + καίω (kaíō, “burn”). In this sense, displaced native Old English blæc (“ink”, literally “black”). Sense four refers to the ink used in newspapers.
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: ynke, enque, encaustum, ἔγκαυστον