sepia
sepia Lexical Profile
sepia Game Scores & Validity
• adjective
Having a rich, dark reddish-brown color, or produced using sepia toning in photography.
"A framed sepia portrait of her great-grandparents hung above the fireplace."
• noun
A dark, rich reddish-brown color or pigment originally prepared from the ink sac secretion of the common cuttlefish, widely used in watercolor painting and monochrome photography.
"The historical archive contained dozens of nineteenth-century portraits printed in warm tones of sepia."
Any marine cephalopod mollusk of the genus Sepia (family Sepiidae), native to coastal and temperate waters of the Old World, characterized by an internal calcareous shell (cuttlebone), eight arms, two tentacles, and an ink sac.
• verb
To color, tint, or tone (a drawing, print, or photograph) with a reddish-brown sepia pigment or filter.
"The photographer decided to sepia the digital prints to give them an antique appearance."
• Rhymes for sepia
• Nearby Words
Word Origin & Etymology
Borrowed in the early 16th century via Latin from Ancient Greek 'sēpía' (σηπία), meaning 'cuttlefish', probably connected to 'sēpō' ('to make rotten'), in reference to the dark, muddy ink secreted by the animal.