dye

• IPA^(key): /daɪ/

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• Rhymes: -aɪ
• Homophones: die, Di, Dai, dy

From Middle English deie, from Old English dēah, dēag (“color, hue, dye”), from Proto-West Germanic *daugu (“colour, shade”), from *daugan (“to conceal, be dark”), from Proto-Indo-European *dʰewh₂- (“to smoke, raise dust, camouflage”).

The verb is from Middle English deien, from Old English dēagian, from the noun.

Yarn colored with dye. The yarn has been dyed.

• (obsolete) die

dye (countable and uncountable, plural dyes)

1. A colourant, especially one that has an affinity to the substrate to which it is applied.
2. Any hue, color, or blee.

• colourant
• tincture

• ink

dye (third-person singular simple present dyes, present participle dyeing, simple past and past participle dyed)

1. (transitive) To colour with dye, or as if with dye.

   You look different. Have you had your hair dyed?

   • 1983, Richard Ellis, The Book of Sharks, Knopf, →ISBN, page 164:

     If indeed sharks were inclined to eat people, the world's oceans would be dyed crimson with the blood of millions.

• (to color): tint, stain, shade, streak

dye (plural dyce)

1. Archaic spelling of die (“a cube used in games of chance”).
   • 1726 October 28, [Jonathan Swift], “The Author Permitted to See the Grand Academy of Lagado. […]”, in Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World. […] [Gulliver’s Travels], volume II, London: […] Benj[amin] Motte, […], →OCLC, part III (A Voyage to Laputa, Balnibarbi, Glubbdubdribb, Luggnagg, and Japan), page 72:

     The Superficies was compoſed of ſeveral bits of Wood, about the bigneſs of a Dye, but ſome larger than others.

   • 1748, David Hume, Enquiries concerning the human understanding and concerning the principles of moral., London: Oxford University Press, published 1973, § 46:

     If a dye were marked with one figure or number of spots on four sides, and with another figure or number of spots on the two remaining sides, it would be more probable, that the former would turn up than the latter;

• Dey, dey, ye'd, yed

dye

1. plural of dy

From French dieu (“god”).

• IPA^(key): /dje/

dye

1. god