Emily Dickinson Lexicon

RED, a. [Sax. red, read, and reod, rude, red, ruddy; D. rood; G. roth; Sw. röd; Dan. röd; Corn. rydh; Ir. ruadh; Arm. ruydh; W. rhuz, red, ruddy; Sans. rohida; Russ. rdeyu, to redden; Gr. ερυθρος, red, and ῥοδον, a rose, from its color; Ar. وَرَدَ warada, to be present, to enter, to descend, to come, to invade, to blossom, to stain with a rose color, to bring to be of a red color; deriv. وَرْدٌ, a rose, the Gr. ῥοδον; Ch. ורד, a rose; Syr. nearly the same; Eth. ወረደ warad, to descend, to bring down. These Arabic and Ethiopic words are the Heb. and Ch. ירד, to descend, to bring down, and this is radically the same as רדה, which is rendered in Hebrew, to descend or come down, to decline, to bring down, to subdue, to have dominion; Ch. like senses, and to correct, to chastise, to expand or open, to flow, to plow; Syr. to go, to walk, to journey, L. gradior, also to correct, to teach; (qu. L. erudio.) The Arabic gives the sense of rose, which may be from opening, as blossoms, a sense coinciding with the Chaldee; and red from the same sense, or from the color of the rose. The Greeks called the Arabian gulf the Erythrean or Red sea, probably from Edom or Idumea; improperly applying the meaning of Edom, red, to the sea, and this improper application has come down to the present time.]

Of a bright color, resembling blood. Red is a simple or primary color, but of several different shades or hues, as scarlet, crimson, vermilion, orange red, &c. We say, red color, red cloth, red flame, red eyes, red cheeks, red lead, &c. Red book of the exchequer, an ancient English record or manuscript containing various treatises relating to the times before the conquest. – Encyc. Red men, red people, red children, the aboriginals of America, as distinguished from the whites. – Rawle.