English
carnation
Carnation may come from Middle French carnation ‘flesh color, complexion’.
- Middle Frenchc. 1400–1600carnation‘flesh color, complexion’by way of Italian carnagioneuncertain
- Englishearliest quotation 1851same form
attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed
Earlier history uncertain.
Lineage
- Middle Frenchc. 1400–1600carnation‘flesh color, complexion’by way of Italian carnagioneuncertain
- Englishearliest quotation 1851same form
Earliest quotation: 1851, Herman Melville, Moby Dick: “And the women of New Bedford, they bloom like…”
Equivalent to carō + -ate + -ion
The story
As a flower and its color, possibly instead from corruption in French of coronation (‘crowning, crowned thing’) under the influence of carnation, from the flower's supposed resemblance to a crown.
Linked words
through Proto-Indo-European *(s)ker- ‘to cut off, sever’
short, across, cross, share, screen, score, cancer, shirt, circle, circuit, crucial, curve, circus, skirt, curb, shrine, scare, crest, scrutiny, circulation, carnival, circa, scar, shred, shear, raffle, corolla, cancellation, shrewd, corona, crux, scorpion, circulate, cirque, scorn, riddance, crepe, carcinoma, corgi, shard, 115 more
through Proto-Italic *karō ‘meat’
through Latin carō ‘flesh, meat’
Today it means
noun originally, Dianthus caryophyllus
Language periods are conventional ranges, not dates for this word.
Etymograph / Middle French carnation / carnation