ochre

plural ochres · alternative ocher

1. countableuncountableA clay earth pigment containing silica, aluminum and ferric oxide.
2. countableuncountableA somewhat dark yellowish orange colour.
3. colloquialcountableuncountablemolecular biologyThe stop codon sequence "UAA".
4. countabledatedslanguncountableMoney, especially gold.

   ‘What does he come here cheeking us for, then?’ cried Master Kidderminster, showing a very irascible temperament. ‘If you want to cheek us, pay your ochre at the doors and take it out.’

   1854, Charles Dickens, chapter 6, in Hard Times

5. countableuncountableAny of various brown-coloured hesperiid butterflies of the genus Trapezites.

alternative ocher

1. not comparableHaving a yellow-orange colour.
2. not comparablearchaeologyReferring to cultures that covered their dead with ochre.

present singular third person ochres · participle present ochring · participle present ochreing · participle past ochred · past ochred · alternative ocher

1. To cover or tint with ochre.

   The sun gloats in the sky, casting a gleam on the pasture where there was so much umbering and ochreing only moments before.

   2009 July 6, Verlyn Klinkenborg, “How the Thunder Sounds”, in New York Times

   1 more example

   […] his eye was caught by the sight of one child in a group of smaller children playing in the shallows some little distance down—a white child, so white by contrast with the others that at first he thought it must be ochred, which it could not be while playing in the water.

   1938, Xavier Herbert, chapter 14, in Capricornia, New York: Appleton, published 1943, page 229

plural ochres

1. countableobsoleteuncountableObsolete spelling of okra.