i did a doubletake when i used this word today and atomicized it to check spelling, because it seems reminiscent of adamantine (i hadn't realized that amaranthine means, literally, having the characteristics of an amaranth, which is "any of various annuals of the genus Amaranthus having dense green or reddish clusters of tiny flowers and including several weeds, ornamentals, and food plants.") i'm not entirely sure why this, of all flowers, is heralded as being eternal, but that's not really my query.
i'm wondering if there are other not-so-obvious words that are based upon natural phenomenons, and ending in the -ine suffix.
or perhaps i'm just befuddled today, and my brain is seeing nonexistent connections.
If the amaranth is as hard to kill as pigweed, I can understand a primitive farmer thinking it was immortal, even if it is an annual.It isn't hard to imagine some idiotic poet whose effeminate fingers never had to struggle with it immortalizing it in verse. There are lots of words ending in " -ine " but I can't think of any with poetic possibilities.
incarnadine
Properly, to make flesh-coloured or carnation; but from Shakespeare onward associated with the colour of blood.
1605 Shakes. Macbeth
This my Hand will rather The multitudinous Seas incarnardine, Making the Greene, one Red.
Tourmaline is a gemstone that may be clear or colored.
Tourmaline is a gemstone that may be clear or colored.
Hence, tourmalinine; Capable of being easily or not at all understood, esp. if both at the same time.
:-D
hence, tourmalinization - replacement with an unknown quantity.
How about "margarine"?
[French, from Greek margaron, pearl
How about calcimine, for whitening old ceilings and plaster walls.
Jasmine can mean pale yellow.
Also safranine, a yellow-red aniline dye.
Or calamine - flesh coloured with a pink hue.
And good for relieving the itch in chicken pox or other rashes in children.
One of the tragedies of the great fire of Alexandria was the loss of the manuscript of a carefully controlled study that proved that calamine lotion was no damned good.
Dear Pluarch: when did they start making colored saltines?
yah gotta go back to the girl's orginal q, Dr Bill:
"...words that are based upon natural phenomenons, and ending in the -ine suffix"Salt is natural, yesno?
I goofed. So many color words were given I got to thinking that was essential.
Saint Ine
King of West Saxons, d. 728. He was a son of the underking Cenred and ascended the West-Saxon throne in 688, a year before the death of his predecessor Caedwalla. For thirty-seven years he ruled over a turbulent and war-like people, and by virtue of a varied genius was equally successful as a warrior and legislator. His first efforts were directed towards establishing internal peace, and in the fifth year of his reign he drew up a set of laws which regulated the administration of justice and fixed the legal status of the various elapses of his subjects. With the exception of the Kentish laws this code is the earliest extant specimen of Anglo-Saxon legislation, and for that reason is of particular interest. When matters in his own realm had been adjusted, Ine turned his attention to Withred, King of Kent, and at the head of a formidable army demanded weregild for the death of Mul (for Mollo), brother of Caedwalla. Withred paid the full compensation—thirty thousand pounds of silver—and admitted the supremacy of the West-Saxon over all the country held by the English south of the Thames.
Did we mention turpentine? (And then see under Animal Safari all the animal adjectives that end in ine.)
Well, there's a heroine, who could be a natural phenomenon...
And going online has proven to be a natural one, too...
And antihistamines give relief to natural phenomena...
Oh, and can't forget tangerines (natural) and tambourines (unnatural, please forgive)...my kids would never forgive me...
And all that lives in the sea is marine, quite natural and phenomenal...
And, when very hungry, you can eat an all-natural submarine, some over six feet long, which qualifies as a phenomenon...
There's Listerine (blagh!) and latrines, but I don't think they're exactly natural. It would be phenomenal to find someone who enjoyed the taste of Listerine...
And cosines and inclines and declines...certainly some are phenomenally natural...
And an irritating natural phenomena not to be encouraged is (of a child) the whine...
Oh! And the natural phenomena of the 1,776 miles of the Rhine!
And Rhine wine! That can be naturally phenomenal!
And, on a romantic night, you can Begin the Beguine, which may lead to naturally splendiferous phenomena...
DubDub