engrain
.
Searchable Lemmata: grain (AF), engreinen (ME), engranyt (OScots), engrain (MdE), ingrain (MdE).
Alternate Forms: en greine, en greyn, engreynen, engreyned, engreynyd, hengreyned.
Definitions and Defining Citations:
1(psp.)
Manufacture;
to dye red with cochineal; to dye fast with colour; to dye in the grain. Appears as a ppl.: fast-dyed; dyed 'in grain'. Note the earlier AF phrasal form 'en grain'.(ante 1300 ?)
1. [123] ... drap de lin teint en jaune ... [125] ... Baleis est une pere ke vent de une isle ky ... ad a nun Corinthe ... [128.xvii.12] ... Ele deit estre envolupé en drap de lin teint en jaune (var. en greine)
[AND Lapid (123-128) circa 1100/1300]
2. .iiii. russet de Colchestere scarletz, bloyes ou pers selestiens, plunketz sanguyns et violetz en greyn rayés, motlez de Sarisbury et autrez divers colours de plusours sortz
[AND Man lang ANTS (76.9) 1396]
3. [14.1] ... `I Haue but one hatere,' quod Haukyn; `I am the lasse to blame Though it be soiled and selde clene -- I slepe there-inne on ni3tes' ... [14.20] ... Dobet shal beten it and bouken it as bri3te as any scarlet, And engreynen it with good wille
Poetic, Vision.
[MED PPl.B ((LdMisc 581) 14.1-20) circa 1400]
6. ... And ferthermore to ordeyn and stablissh that noo man, but such as hath possessions of the yerely value of .xl. s., use nor were in aray for his body, fro the seid fest, eny fustian, bustian nor fustian of napuls, scarlet cloth engreyned; nor noo pellure but blak lambe or white lambe ...
Legal.
[LexP PROME (Ed. IV: Parl. of April 1463, item 20 (detail)) 1463]
Sex: N/A Use: n/a Status: n/a Rank: n/a Ceremonial: No
Body Parts: N/A.
Etymological Evidence:
Speculative, OED 2 offers the following:
'Palsgrave 1530 gives a French engrainer to dye. The word, whether first formed in French or English, was suggested by the French phrase en graine (adapted in English as in grain ) where graine means the cochineal dye. [Note: the kermes insects from which the dyestuff was taken resembled grain, and hence the dyestuff was known as grain. GRO-C.] Hence to engrain and to dye in grain meant originally to dye with cochineal, and subsequently to dye in any fast colour. But afterwards they came to be associated with the word grain , < French grain , the "fibre" or minute structure of a thing; so that in modern use "to dye in (the) grain" means to impregnate the very substance of the material with the dye, to dye the wool before it is woven; and the present senses of the verb engrain have distinct reference to grain "minute structure"'. [s.v. 'engrain, ingrain, v.1', OED Online. June 2013. Oxford University Press. 12 August 2013 <http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/62297?rskey=wiwrrE&result=1&isAdvanced=false>].
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Etym Cog:
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