wine-dark

English

Etymology

The traditional translation/calque of Ancient Greek οἶνοψ (oînops), equivalent to wine +‎ dark.

Adjective

wine-dark (not comparable)

1. (literary, especially of the sea) Resembling the dark color (or perhaps other properties) of wine.
   • 2015, Frederic W. Farrar, Gathering Clouds: A Tale of The Days of Saint Chrysostom:

     He had that type of countenance which dim tradition was already beginning to assign to the Son of Man—the perfectly oval face, the waved and wine-dark hair, the glowing complexion, the eyes whose depths seemed to be lighted by some holy spiritual flame within—of Him who had been fairer than the children of men.

   • 2015, Anthony Adolph, Brutus of Troy: And the Quest for the Ancestry of the British, page 200:

     The Trojan War was probably real enough, but the myths of Aeneas crossing the wine-dark Mediterranean to lay the foundations of the Roman Empire in Italy, and Brutus's subsequent journey to fill Britain with descendants of the Trojans, are myths.

   Synonym: wine-blue

   wine-dark:  

Alternative forms

• winedark

Translations

dark like wine

• Ancient Greek: οἶνοψ (oînops)
• German: weinfarben (de), weindunkel