vermeil

comparative more vermeil · superlative most vermeil · alternative vermile

1. archaicpoeticBright scarlet, vermilion.

   And in her cheekes the vermeill red did shew / Like roses in a bed of lillies shed[…].

   1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book II, Canto III”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC

   1 more example

   Many and many a verse I hope to write, Before the daisies, vermeil rimm’d and white, Hide in deep herbage;

   1818, John Keats, Endymion^(https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Endymion_(Keats)#Book_I), Book I, lines 49-51

2. archaicpoeticSpecifically of faces, lips etc.: red, ruddy, healthy-looking.

   a lip as vermeil as her own. (IV, xxx)

   1820, Charles Maturin, Melmoth the Wanderer

   1 more example

   his carriage; demeanor, and venerable behaviour, in a face so young, vermeill, and heart enflaming[…].

   1603, Michel de Montaigne, chapter 36, in John Florio, transl., The Essayes […], book II, London: […] Val[entine] Simmes for Edward Blount […], →OCLC

plural vermeils · alternative vermile

1. poeticVermilion; bright red.

   The mortall steele stayed not till it was seene / To gore her side; yet was the wound not deepe, / But lightly rased her soft silken skin, / That drops of purple blood thereout did weepe, / Which did her lilly smock with staines of vermeil steep.

   1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book III, Canto I”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC

2. Silver gilt or gilt bronze.
3. A liquid composition applied to a gilded surface to give luster to the gold.