erubescent

English

Etymology

18th century. From Latin erubescens, present participle of erubescere (“to grow red”); e (“out”) + rubescere. See rubescent.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˌɛɹ.ʊˈbɛs.ənt/
• Rhymes: -ɛsənt

Adjective

erubescent (comparative more erubescent, superlative most erubescent)

1. Red; reddish.
   • 1939 May 4, James Joyce, Finnegans Wake, London: Faber and Faber Limited, →OCLC; republished London: Faber & Faber Limited, 1960, →OCLC:

     Cycloptically through the windowdisks and with eddying awes the round eyes of the rundreisers, back to back, buck to bucker, on their airish chaunting car, beheld with intouristing anterestedness the clad pursue the bare, the bare the green, the green the frore, the frore the cladagain, as their convoy wheeled encirculingly abound the gigantig’s lifetree, our fireleaved loverlucky blomsterbohm, phoenix in our woodlessness, haughty, cacuminal, erubescent (repetition!) whose roots they be asches with lustres of peins.

     Book I, episode 3

   • 2004, L I Malyschev, Flora of Siberia:

     Fruits ovoid or orbicular, without nutlets at base, narrow into a neck, often underdeveloped, white, greenish white and erubescent only on 1 side

2. Blushing
   • 1848 November – 1850 December, William Makepeace Thackeray, chapter 54, in The History of Pendennis. […], volume (please specify |volume=I or II), London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1849–1850, →OCLC:

     [T]he Major erubescent confounded the impudence of the young folks, and said when he had his hair cut he would keep a lock of it for Miss Laura.

   • 2019, Cameron Mcnaughton, “Erubescent,”, in Imaginings: 21St Century Poet:

     I see you on the edge of a mountain,
     I call your name.
     You turn and give a smile, you hug me and hold me.
     As the sun goes down,
     You can see I'm clearly Erubescent.
     I hate and I love it at the same time.

Related terms

• albescent (“becoming white”), flavescent (“becoming yellow”), nigrescent (“becoming black”), virescent (“becoming green”)

References

• “erubescent”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.

Latin

Verb

ērubēscent

1. third-person plural future active indicative of ērubēscō