ultramarine
/ˌʌltɹəməˈɹiːn/
ultramarine means beyond the sea. It carries an Arena rating of 1892, earned across 25 head-to-head judged battles.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, ultramarine ranks #593 of 17,130 for Most Beautiful Words, #701 of 17,127 for Most Vivid Words, #706 of 17,143 for Best Fossil-Poetry Words, #1,017 of 17,124 for Most Sublime Words.
ultramarine is pronounced /ˌʌltɹəməˈɹiːn/.
Why “ultramarine” is a great word
A brilliant deep blue color or the pigment that produces it, originally made from ground lapis lazuli. From Medieval Latin ultrāmarīnus, from Latin ultrā ("beyond") + marīnus ("of the sea, marine"), as the stone was imported from beyond the sea, first attested in English in the 1590s. Unlike "azure," which is the pale, dissolving blue of a summer sky, or "cobalt," a cooler, green-tinged blue born of earthbound metals, ultramarine is depth made visible. It is the cloak of a Renaissance Madonna, the impossible saturation of tropical water seen from a cliff, the faint violet undertone that catches in the throat like a half-remembered incantation—the sea’s vastness made solid, then ground again into something almost holy.
Etymology
Borrowed from Medieval Latin ultrāmarīnus, from Latin ultrā (“beyond”) + marīnus (“of or relating to the sea, marine”). By surface analysis, ultra + marine. Noun sense 1 (“pigment”) refers to the fact that lapis lazuli was obtained from foreign countries and hence “beyond the sea”.
adj
- Beyond the sea.
- Of a brilliant dark blue or slightly purplish color like that of the pigment (noun sense 1).
noun
- In full ultramarine blue: a brilliant blue pigment traditionally made from ground-up lapis lazuli, and now usually either extracted from mineral deposits or made synthetically.
- A brilliant dark blue or slightly purplish colour like that of the pigment.e.g.“The atmosphere beneath is languorous, and is so tinged with azure that what artists call the middle distance partakes also of that hue, while the horizon beyond is of the deepest ultramarine.” — 1891, Thomas Hardy, chapter II, in Tess of the d’Urbervilles: A Pure Woman Faithfully Presented […], volume I, London: James R[ipley] Osgood, McIlvaine and Co., […], →OCLC, phase the first (The Maiden
Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
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