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The Word of the Day for February 28, 2009 is:

vinaceous • \vye-NAY-shus\

• adjective

: of the color of red wine

Example Sentence:

At the art museum, we saw a portrait of Mary II wearing a magnificent vinaceous dress befitting her royal splendor.

Did you know?

The first recorded evidence of "vinaceous" in English dates from 1688, shortly before the accession of Mary II. If ever the queen used "vinaceous," she was probably in the confines of her landscaped garden, admiring the vinaceous shades of petals or looking indifferently at the vinaceous cap of a mushroom; since its beginning, "vinaceous" has flourished in the earthy lexicon of horticulture and mycology. It has also taken flight in the ornithological world as a descriptive word for the unique dark-red coloring of some birds, like the vinaceous amazon or vinaceous rosefinch.