Roseate- Daily Word №21
Rose? Yep! Nothing to do with the flowers though…
I came across roseate while visiting Mary Shelley’s ‘Mathilda’. On the first page, this word struck me as something more. Flowing and ethereal, it stood out to me like a modernist vase in a victorian mansion.
“…it is winter and the sun has already set: there are no clouds in the clear, frosty sky to reflect its slant beams, but the air itself is tinged with a slight roseate colour which is again reflected on the snow that covers the ground...”
Not a colour but something more. A smell or a sense or something just on the edge of our senses. I could almost smell the crisp winter air mingled with a colour and scent of rosy wildflowers.
Fascinating…And so I looked deeper
Finding the Roots
roseate come from the Middle English word ‘roseat’. I then traced the word till its Latin origins ‘roseātus’ , which means ‘relating to a rose’.
Right now, however, roseate is mostly used in biology to describe a tinge of pink, like a rose. But as many words here proved to us, scientific ‘jargon’ usually once had a different usage.
roseate now means ‘rose-crimson’ or ‘full of roses’ when used in fiction as an adjective.
Using ‘roseate’ in a Sentence
roseate is so diverse because of the imagery it summons in one’s mind. Not only do they picture the colour but also the flower its sweet scent. Replace ‘pink’ or ‘peachy’ with roseate instead.
“The roseate sunset.”
