verdigris means A blue-green patina or rust that forms on copper-containing metals. It carries an Arena rating of 1836, earned across 28 head-to-head judged battles.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, verdigris ranks #112 of 17,127 for Most Vivid Words, #459 of 17,143 for Best Fossil-Poetry Words, #912 of 17,126 for Most Satisfying to Say, #1,582 of 17,140 for Most Whimsical Words.
verdigris is pronounced /ˈvɝ.də.ɡɹis/.
Why “verdigris” is a great word
A blue-green patina, primarily of basic copper acetate, that forms on copper, brass, or bronze surfaces exposed to air or moisture. From Middle English vertegrece, verdegres, from Old French verte grez, an alteration of verte de Grece, literally "green of Greece." Unlike "rust," iron's reddish-brown decay, or "patina," a broad term for any sheen of age, verdigris is copper's specific and eloquent corrosion. It is the soft, powdery bloom on an old church rooftop, the crusted emerald in the grooves of a forgotten bronze statue, the precise colour of time settling on a penny at the bottom of a fountain—the beautiful, toxic evidence of metal slowly remembering its ore.
Etymology
From Middle English vertegrece, verdegres, from Old French verte grez (literally “acidic green”), an alteration of older verte de Grece (literally “green of Greece”). The modern French writing of this word is vert-de-gris (literally “green of gray”).
noun
- A blue-green patina or rust that forms on copper-containing metals.e.g.“Let's to^([sic]) the museum. Cannon-balls; arrow-heads; Roman glass and a forceps green with verdigris.” — 1922 October 26, Virginia Woolf, Jacob’s Room, Richmond, London: […] Leonard & Virginia Woolf at the Hogarth Press, →OCLC; republished London: The Hogarth Press, 1960, →OCLC, page 17:
- Copper acetate.
- The color of this patina or material.
verb
- To cover, or coat, with verdigris.e.g.“[…] there were always some wretched musicians, with an old fiddle, an old clarinet, and an old verdigrised brass bugle[…]” — 1853 August 4 – 1858 January 3 (date written), Nathaniel Hawthorne, Passages from the English Note-books of Nathaniel Hawthorne, volume (please specify |volume=I or II), Boston, Mass.: Fields, Osgood,
Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
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