imbrue
English
editEtymology
editFrom Old French embruer, from Germanic.
Pronunciation
editVerb
editimbrue (third-person singular simple present imbrues, present participle imbruing, simple past and past participle imbrued)
- To stain (in, with, blood, slaughter, etc.).
- 1837, Edward Smallwood, Manuella, the Executioner’s Daughter ; A Story of Madrid, volume II, Richard Bentley, pages 275–276:
- Armed with the weapon which was destined to destroy himself, Imnaz sprang down the ladder, — found the door, and, emerging from the abode of crime, sought a more secure resting place, leaving his hostess to discover, with return of day, in whose blood were imbrued the hands of an hospiticide.
- 1903, Henry James, The Ambassadors[1]:
- "I've been sacrificing so to strange gods that I feel I want to put on record, somehow, my fidelity—fundamentally unchanged, after all—to our own. I feel as if my hands were embrued with the blood of monstrous alien altars—of another faith altogether.
Alternative forms
editDerived terms
editTranslations
editTo stain
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