also bloodstained, "stained with blood; guilty of slaughter," 1590s, from blood (n.) + past participle of stain (v.).

late 14c., "damage or blemish the appearance of," probably representing a merger of Old Norse steina "to paint, color, stain," and a shortened form of Middle English disteynen "to discolor or stain," from Old French desteign-, stem of desteindre "to remove the color" (Modern French déteindre), from des- (from Latin dis- "remove;" see dis-) + Old French teindre "to dye," from Latin tingere (see tincture). Meaning "to color" (fabric, wood, etc.) is from 1650s. Intransitive sense "to become stained, take stain" is from 1877. Related: Stained; staining. Stained glass is attested from 1791.

1859, "dirty, stained, or blackened," from smudge (n.) + -y (2). The meaning "blurry, indistinct" is by 1865. Related: Smudginess.

1781, earlier red-hand (early 15c.), originally in Scottish legal writing, from red (adj.1) + -handed; presumably from the image of a murderer's hands stained with fresh blood, extended figuratively to one caught in perpetration of any crime.

word-forming element meaning "black," from Greek melano-, combining form of melas (genitive melanos) "black, dark, murky,"probably from a PIE root *melh-"black, of darkish color" (source also of Sanskrit malinah "dirty, stained, black," Lithuanian mėlynas"blue," Latin mulleus "reddish"). 

1920, used of milk fermented by acidophilic bacteria, from acidophil (1900), indicating "easily stained by acid dyes," a hybrid word, from Latin acidus "acidic, sour, tart" (see acid (adj.)) + Greek philos "loving" (see -phile); the bacteria so called because they stain easily with an acid dye.

1660s, "to delude" (perhaps implied in Old English foxung "fox-like wile, craftiness"), from fox (n.). The same notion is implied in Old English verbal noun foxung "fox-like wile, craftiness;" and Middle English had foxerie "wiliness, trickery, deceit." Foxed in booksellers' catalogues (1847) means "stained with fox-colored marks" (rusty red-brown). In other contexts the past-participle adjective typically meant "drunk" (1610s).

name of a movement in poetry that sought clarity of expression through use of precise visual images, "hard light, clear edges" [Pound], coined 1912 by Ezra Pound; see image (n.) + -ism. Related: Imagist.

—Say it, no ideas but in things—

nothing but the blank faces of the houses

and cylindrical trees

bent, forked by preconception and accident—

split, furrowed, creased, mottled, stained—

secret—into the body of the light!

[William Carlos Williams, from "Paterson"]

1570s, "affinity between certain things," from French sympathie (16c.) and directly from Late Latin sympathia "community of feeling, sympathy," from Greek sympatheia "fellow-feeling, community of feeling," from sympathes "having a fellow feeling, affected by like feelings," from assimilated form of syn- "together" (see syn-) + pathos "feeling" (from PIE root *kwent(h)- "to suffer").

In English, almost a magical notion at first; used in reference to medicines that heal wounds when applied to a cloth stained with blood from the wound. Meaning "conformity of feelings" is from 1590s; sense of "fellow feeling, compassion" is first attested c. 1600. An Old English loan-translation of sympathy was efensargung.

1590s (implied in marbled), "to give (something) the veined and clouded appearance of marble," from marble (n.). Of meat with "veins" of fat, from 1770. Of books, "having the end papers or edges colored or stained in a conventional imitation of marble," 1670s. Related: Marbling.

It is done in a trough of water covered by a layer of gum tragacanth mixed with a little ox-gall. The fluid colors are sprinkled or spattered over this layer with a brush in the arrangement intended for use or in a manner which will admit of producing the desired figuration by drawing a brass comb over the surface. The dampened paper, held by the ends, is lightly passed in a curve over this surface, taking up the colors, and finished by sizing and burnishing or calendering. [Century Dictionary, 1895]