Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun A blue pigment made from powdered lapis lazuli.
- noun A similar pigment made synthetically by heating clay, sodium carbonate, and sulfur together.
- noun A vivid or strong blue to purplish blue.
- adjective Of the color ultramarine.
- adjective Of or from a place beyond the sea.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun A beautiful natural blue pigment, obtained from the mineral lapis lazuli, a variety of haüyne.
- noun Azure-stone.
- Situated or being beyond the sea.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- adjective Situated or being beyond the sea.
- noun (Chem.) A blue pigment formerly obtained by powdering lapis lazuli, but now produced in large quantities by fusing together silica, alumina, soda, and sulphur, thus forming a glass, colored blue by the sodium polysulphides made in the fusion. Also used adjectively.
- noun a green pigment obtained as a first product in the manufacture of ultramarine, into which it is changed by subsequent treatment.
- noun (Paint.) a pigment which is the residuum of lapis lazuli after the ultramarine has been extracted. It was used by the old masters as a middle or neutral tint for flesh, skies, and draperies, being of a purer and tenderer gray than that produced by the mixture of more positive colors.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun a brilliant
blue pigment that is either extracted from mineral deposits or made synthetically. - noun colour a brilliant pure dark blue or slightly
purplish colour . - adjective having a brilliant blue colour.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun blue pigment made of powdered lapis lazuli
- noun a vivid blue to purple-blue color
- adjective of a brilliant pure blue to purplish blue color
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
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Examples
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Then he looked at the third, whereon he found written in ultramarine these two couplets,
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The use of an expensive coloring source or coloring material was reasonable, for example, when substitutes were not good enough, when the area to be covered was small but central to the design, or when the quantity of coloring material produced was large in proportion to the amount of coloring source used. reference True ultramarine is a brilliant, beautiful, and reasonably durable pigment.
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Another method of purifying the ultramarine from the cement may be used, which is the pricking the yolks of eggs with a pin, and moistening the matter to be purified with the soft part that will run out, and working them together in a glass or flint mortar; after which the mixture must be put into the lixivium, and proceeded with as is above directed.
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When so ground, it forms the stable and magnificent colour, _genuine_ ultramarine, which is the finest and purest blue on the artist's palette, but owing to its extremely high price its use is not in very great demand, especially as many excellent chemical substitutes of equal permanence are obtainable at little cost.
The Chemistry, Properties and Tests of Precious Stones John Mastin
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"Blue as the veins o'er the Madonna's breast," from which the beautiful pigment called ultramarine is extracted.
How to See the British Museum in Four Visits W. Blanchard Jerrold 1855
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One entry might explain how to repeat Newton's experiments with prisms; others might describe materials and techniques needed to produce certain colors, such as ultramarine reference, verdet, or carmine. 16 Descriptions of such processes as painting or enameling might also include ingredient lists and production details.
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1828 M. Guimet succeeded in making an artificial ultramarine, known now extensively as French ultramarine, which is little, if at all, inferior in beauty to lazurite.
How to See the British Museum in Four Visits W. Blanchard Jerrold 1855
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Colours for painting, not only those used by artists, such as ultramarine, [3] carmine, [4] and lake; [5] Antwerp blue, [6] chrome yellow, [7] and Indian ink; [8] but also the coarser colours used by the common house-painter are more or less adulterated.
A Treatise on Adulterations of Food, and Culinary Poisons Exhibiting the Fraudulent Sophistications of Bread, Beer, Wine, Spiritous Liquors, Tea, Coffee, Cream, Confectionery, Vinegar, Mustard, Pepper, Cheese, Olive Oil, Pickles, and Other Articles Employed in Domestic Economy Friedrich Christian Accum 1803
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"ultramarine" has been derived, is most remarkable in the Mediterranean, that sea of delights; but it is met with, all along the rock-bound coasts of the Peninsula of Spain and Portugal, extending through the
The Two Admirals James Fenimore Cooper 1820
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She wore conservative Romulan clothing, including black slacks and a long-sleeved ultramarine blouse.
Star Trek: Typhon Pact: Rough Beasts of Empire David R. George III 2011
chained_bear commented on the word ultramarine
"With the fin-de-siècle vogue for prettily coloured walls, the kitchen was painted blue.*
* Less -- as one modern paint company would have it -- because flies were repelled by the colour than because both ultramarine and Prussian blue were relatively non-toxic compared to other colours laden with arsenic, lead and chromium."
--Kate Colquhoun, Taste: The Story of Britain Through Its Cooking (NY: Bloomsbury, 2007), 257
January 18, 2017