[ad. L. tinctūra a dyeing, tinging, f, tinct-, ppl. stem of tingĕre to dye: see -URE.]
† 1. A coloring matter, dye, pigment; spec. a dye used as a cosmetic. Obs.
c. 1400. Lanfranc’s Cirurg., 18. If a man desiriþ for to haue blac heeris…, þanne make þis tincture.
1606. Warner, Alb. Eng., XVI. ci. 401. Tinctures, Tiers, Maske, Fardingale, and Fan.
1613. Purchas, Pilgrimage (1614), 646. Some of them … rubbed his skin, to see whether his whitenesse were naturall,… perceiuing it to be no tincture, they were out of measure astonished.
1692. Dryden, Juvenal, Ded. (1697), 36. When the Wooll has taken the whole Tincture, and drunk in as much of the Dye as it can receive.
1717. Lady M. W. Montagu, Lett. to C’tess Mar, 1 April. The Greeks and Turks have a custom of putting round their eyes … a black tincture, that … adds very much to the blackness of them.
1825. J. Nicholson, Operat. Mechanic, 730. Extract, by infusion, the tincture of the colouring substances.
2. Hue, color: esp. as communicated (naturally or artificially) by a coloring matter or dye, or by something that stains; a tinge, tint. Now rare.
1477. Norton, Ord. Alch., Proem in Ashm., Theat. Chem. Brit. (1652), 7. All such Men as give Tincture to Glasse.
1555. Eden, Decades, 328. Certeyne waters … do … shewe … dyuers tinctures of mynerall substaunce.
1594. Plat, Jewell-ho., II. 11. If you may not giue a tincture to your creame before you chearne it.
1602. Marston, Ant. & Mel., III. Wks. 1856, I. 30. The shuddering morne that flakes, With silver tincture, the east vierge of heaven.
1713. Addison, Cato, I. iv. ’Tis not … The tincture of a skin, that I admire.
1800. Helena Wells, Constantia Neville (ed. 2), I. 254. The heat of the mask had given to her complexion such a tincture of red.
1822–34. Good’s Study Med. (ed. 4), IV. 374. The matter has a bloody tincture and a bilious smell.
b. Her. Inclusive term for the metals, colors, and furs used in coats of arms, etc.
1610. Guillim, Heraldry, I. ii. (1611), 7. Tincture is a variable hew of Armes and is common as well to differences of Armes as to the Armes themselues.
1725. Coats, Dict. Her., Tincture, is no other than the Hue or Colour of any thing in Coat-Armour, and under this Denomination may be also included the two Metals Or and Argent … because they are often represented by Yellow and White, and they themselves bear those Colours.
1842. Brande, Dict. Sc., etc., Tinctures, in Heraldry are of three descriptions: metals, colours, and furs. The former are or, argent; the second gules, azure, sable, vert, purpure, sanguine, and tenny. The chief furs are ermine and vair; but there are several varieties of both, distinguished by different names.
1864. Boutell, Her. Hist. & Pop., iv. 20. The representation of the Tinctures by means of dots and lines was not in use … before … the accession of the Stuarts.
1891. Scott. N. & Q., April, 210/2. At the foot of the stone there is cut the armorial coat … carved so as to show the tinctures, viz., Sable, a fess between three mascles, two and one, or.
† 3. The action of dyeing, staining, or coloring.
1601. Holland, Pliny (1634), II. 619. This stone [Chrysoprase] is very apt to be counterfeited, and especially by tincture.
1650. Bulwer, Anthropomet., ii. 58. This Tincture of Hair is most shameful and detestable in men.
1681. trans. Willis’ Rem. Med. Wks., Vocab., Tincture, a dying or colouring.
† b. fig. A stain, blemish. Obs.
a. 1640. J. Ball, Answ. to Canne, ii. (1642), 9. Our service was picked and culled out of the masse booke … so it might, and yet be free from all fault and tincture.
a. 1658. Cleveland, Poems, etc. (1677), 149. To offend against so Gracious a Patron, would add a Tincture to our Disobedience.
† 4. fig. An imparted quality likened to a color or dye; a specious or ‘colorable’ appearance; a quality or character with which anything is imbued, esp. a derived quality; a tinge. Obs.
1590. Nashe, Pasquil’s Apol., I. D ij. They that abused thys place,… had a little more tincture from hence to lay uppon theyr opinion, than Penrie can haue.
1640. Harvey, Synagogue (1647), 7. Hypocrisie in Church is Alchymie, That casts a golden tincture upon brasse.
1652. L. S., People’s Liberty, vii. 13. His speech … having a tincture from his guilty conscience.
1711. Steele, Spect., No. 144, ¶ 7. A goodness mixed with Fear, gives a Tincture to all her Behaviour.
1757. Burke, Abridgm. Eng. Hist., II. i. The Saxon language received little or no tincture from the Welsh.
1806. Surr, Winter in Lond., I. 242. I attributed this tincture of mind in a great degree to his peculiar destiny.
† 5. A physical quality (other than color) communicated to something; esp. a taste or flavor, a taint. Obs.
1610. Holland, Camden’s Brit., I. 306. Whether it bee by the nature, or tincture and temper thereof.
1625. N. Carpenter, Geog. Del., II. v. (1635), 77. They receive their tincture of saltnesse from some salt minerals of the Earth.
1697. Bp. Patrick, Comm. Exod., xiii. 6. Anything … that might give a Tincture of Acidity to the Bread.
1727. Bradley’s Fam. Dict., s.v. Distilling, The Waters … smell of Smoke, and had a Tincture of Adustion.
b. A slight infusion (of some element or quality; a tinge, a shade, a flavor, a trace; a smattering (of knowledge, etc.).
1612. Selden, Illustr. Drayton’s Poly-olb., xi. 184. They had lived here C. L. yeers by the common account without tincture of true religion.
1697. Burghope, Disc. Relig. Assemb., 107. This irreligious custom … has a tincture of atheism in it.
1711. Steele, Spect., No. 38, ¶ 5. This, perhaps, cannot be called Affectation; but it has some Tincture of it.
1775. Tyrwhitt, Chaucer, IV. 26. We may fairly conclude, that the English language must have imbibed a strong tincture of the French, long before the age of Chaucer.
1858. Carlyle, Fredk. Gt., I. iv. (1872), I. 31. Ernst August has some tincture of soldiership at this time.
† 6. Alchemy. A supposed spiritual principle or immaterial substance whose character or quality may be infused into material things, which are then said to be tinctured; the quintessence, spirit, or soul of a thing. Universal tincture, the Elixir. Obs.
1599. T. M[oufet], Silkwormes, 68. A Quintessence? nay wel it may be call’d A deathlesse tincture, sent vs from the skies Whose colour stands, whose glosse is ne’er appall’d.
1649. J. E[llistone], trans. Behmen’s Epist., Pref. 10. This … conduces to the attainment of the Universall Tincture and Signature; whereby the different secret qualities, and vertues, that are hid in all visible and corporeall things … may be drawne forth and applyed to their right naturall use. Ibid., iii. § 34. Operation of the philosopher’s stone or universal tincture from me.
1693. trans. Blancard’s Phys. Dict. (ed. 2), Tinctura, a Tincture, or Elixir, the Extraction of the Colour, Quality, and Strength of any thing.
† b. An active principle, of a physical nature, emanating or derivable from any body or substance; a liquid or volatile principle. Obs.
1602. T. Fitzherb., Apol., 48. If by chaunce her Maiestie had layed her hand vpon the poysoned pomel of the Sadle in the moneth of Iuly when the pores and veynes are open she might haue byn poysoned or receaue maligne vapors or tinctures.
1671. Grew, Anat. Plants, ii. § 23. The purest part [of the Sap] … recedes, with its due Tinctures, from the said Cortical Body, to all the parts of the Lignous. Ibid., vi. § 4. Precipitation is made by the mixture and reaction of the Tinctures of the Lignous and Cortical Bodies upon each other.
a. 1677. Hale, Prim. Orig. Man., II. xii. 241. The Fertility of their Soil by the Inundation of Nilus, which at its recess leaves so fruitful a Tincture, that thereby and by the heat of the Sun, Animals have their visible production. Ibid., III. iv. 267. The … Dew exhaled from some sorts of Herbs or Weeds,… carries with it the Seminal Tincture of the Herb.
7. Chem. and Pharm. † a. In early chemistry, and in derived uses: The (supposed) essential principle of any substance obtained in solution. Also, the extraction of this essential principle. Obs.
Tincture of gold, POTABLE gold, aurum potabile. Tincture of the Moon (i.e., of silver, Luna): see quot. 1706.
1610. B. Jonson, Alch., II. iii. Infuse vinegar, To draw his volatile substance and his tincture. Ibid. (1626), Fort. Isles, Wks. (Rtldg.), 649/1. This little gallipot Of tincture, high rose tincture.
1651. French, Distill., vi. 179. A way by which the tincture of gold which is the soule thereof,… may be … extracted.
1669. Worlidge, Syst. Agric. (1681), 39. Many of our best Mechanicks being too much addicted to the tincture of this Grain [barley].
1675. E. Wilson, Spadacrene Dunelm., Pref. 12. As to the discovery of Metalline tinctures in waters.
1696. Phillips (ed. 5), Tincture … In Chymistry, the Extraction of the Colour, Quality and Strength of any thing. Ibid. (1706), (ed. Kersey), Tincture of the Moon, is a Dissolution of some of the more rarify’d parts of Silver, made in Spirit of Wine, and whetted by Alkali Salts.
1707. Mortimer, Husb. (1721), I. 355. ’Tis not unlikely that Grain may afford its Tincture, and that excellent Beer and Ale may be made thereof without Malting.
b. Mod. Pharmacy. A solution, usually in a menstruum of alcohol, of some principle used in medicine, chiefly vegetable, as tincture of opium (laudanum), but sometimes animal, as tincture of cantharides, or mineral, as tincture of ferric chloride.
More particularly called an alcoholic tincture. But the menstruum may also be sulphuric ether or spirit of ammonia (both mainly alcohol), which give ethereal and ammoniated tinctures, respectively; when wine is used they are called medicated wines. A tincture is simple when it is a solution of one substance only, compound when of two or more substances.
a. 1648. Digby, Chym. Secr. (1682), 172. An excellent Spirit of Wine, fit to draw Tinctures.
1704. J. Harris, Lex. Techn., I. Tincture, in Chymistry, is a Dissolution of the more fine, and volatile Parts of a mixt Body in Spirit of Wine, or some such proper Menstruum.
1712. trans. Pomet’s Hist. Drugs, I. 184. A Tincture is likewise extracted with Spirit of Wine Tartariz’d.
1789. Buchan, Dom. Med. (1790), 695. Aromatic Tincture. Infuse two ounces of Jamaica pepper in two pints of brandy, without heat, for a few days; then strain off the tincture.
1800. trans. Lagrange’s Chem., II. 327. Alcohol dissolves resins and resinous gums: these solutions are called Tinctures, Elixirs, Quintessences, &c.
1813. J. Thomson, Lect. Inflam., 83. The results were the same when tincture of opium was employed.
1842. Brande, Dict. Sc., etc., s.v., The term tincture is sometimes applied to alcoholic solutions of resins, of which tincture of myrrh, of assafœtida, &c. furnish instances.
1871. Garrod, Mat. Med. (ed. 3), 162. Tincture of Aconite. (Aconite root, in coarse powder, two ounces and a half; rectified spirit, twenty fluid ounces. Prepared by maceration and percolation.)
† 8. Affectedly used for ‘baptism.’ Cf. late L. use of tingĕre (to dip) for ‘baptize,’ and TINCTION 1.
1612. Selden, Illustr. Drayton’s Poly-olb., iv. 73. Honoured in holy tincture of Christianity with the name of Robert. Ibid., ix. 146. Cadwallader … received of P. P. Sergius, with holy tincture, the name of Peter.
