- pink (n., adj.)
- 1570s, common name of Dianthus, a garden plant of various colors. Attribution to "pale rose color" first recorded 1733 (pink-coloured is recorded from 1681). The plant name is perhaps from pink (v.) via notion of "perforated" petals, or from Du. pink "small" (see pinkie), from the term pinck oogen "half-closed eyes," lit. "small eyes," which was borrowed into Eng. (1575) and may have been used as a name for Dianthus, which sometimes has pale red flowers. The flower meaning led to a figurative use for "the flower" or finest example of anything (e.g. Mercutio's "Nay, I am the very pinck of curtesie," Rom. & Jul. II.iv.61). Pink slip "discharge notice" is first recorded 1915. Pink-eye "contagious eye infection" first recorded 1882, Amer.Eng. Pink collar in reference to jobs generally held by women first attested 1977. To see pink elephants "hallucinate from alcoholism" first recorded 1913 in Jack London's "John Barleycorn."
- pink (v.)
- c.1300, "pierce, stab, make holes in," perhaps from a Romanic stem *pinc- (cf. Fr. piquer, Sp. picar), from L. pungere "to pierce, prick" (see pungent). Surviving mainly in pinking shears.