redden

present singular third person reddens · participle present reddening · participle past reddened · past reddened · first person past singular reddened · past second person singular reddened · present singular third person reddens · past singular third person reddened · past plural reddened · past subjunctive reddened · participle present reddening · participle past reddened

1. intransitiveTo turn or become red or redder.

   1997, Ted Hughes, Tales from Ovid, Faber & Faber, "Phaethon," lines 227-9, p. 32, When the sun-god saw that, and the reddening sky And the waning moon seeming to thaw He called the Hours to yoke the horses.

   2 more examples

   But I will make you blush; nay, I will make you redden all over.

   1769, Plautus, Bonnell Thornton (translation), "The Captives", The Comedies of Plautus, T. Becket and P. A. De Hondt, page 341

   Ere this had redden'd with my odious blood.

   1794, William Hamilton, "Mithridates", Poems on Several Occasions, W. Gordon, page 258

2. transitiveTo turn or make red or redder.

   God redden your pale blood!

   1884, Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Becket, act I, scene 4

   2 more examples

   […] If the cloud that hangs Upon the heart and round the mind Cleared from the north and in that height The sun appeared and reddened great Belshazzar's brow, O, ruler, rude With rubies then, attend me now.

   1942, Wallace Stevens, “Country Words”, in The Collected Poems of Wallace Stevens, Knopf, published 1971, page 207

   Then listen Thebes, nurse of Semele, Crown your hair with ivy Turn your fingers green with bryony Redden your walls with berries.

   1969, Wole Soyinka, The Bacchae of Euripides, Norton, published 1974, page 19

1. A male given name.
2. A surname.

   Deobra Redden, 31, was caught on camera in January jumping over a desk and lunging at Judge Mary Kay Holthus, who was sentencing him in another case.

   2024 December 11, “The courtroom attack that led to 26 years in prison”, in BBC, archived from the original on 05 Jan 2025