STAINED • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Stained

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/steɪnd/ Listen

verb

Stain v. t. (past & past part. stained; pres. part. staining)

1.

To discolor by the application of foreign matter; to make foul; to spot; as, to stain the hand with dye; armor stained with blood.

2.

To color, as wood, glass, paper, cloth, or the like, by processes affecting, chemically or otherwise, the material itself; to tinge with a color or colors combining with, or penetrating, the substance; to dye; as, to stain wood with acids, colored washes, paint rubbed in, etc.; to stain glass.

3.

To spot with guilt or infamy; to bring reproach on; to blot; to soil; to tarnish. "Of honor void, Of innocence, of faith, of purity, Our wonted ornaments now soiled and stained."

4.

To cause to seem inferior or soiled by comparison. "She stains the ripest virgins of her age." "That did all other beasts in beauty stain."

Stained glass, glass colored or stained by certain metallic pigments fused into its substance, often used for making ornamental windows.

Synonyms: To paint; dye; blot; soil; sully; discolor; disgrace; taint. Paint, Stain, Dye. These denote three different processes; the first mechanical, the other two, chiefly chemical. To paint a thing is to spread a coat of coloring matter over it; to stain or dye a thing is to impart color to its substance. To stain is said chiefly of solids, as wood, glass, paper; to dye, of fibrous substances, textile fabrics, etc.; the one, commonly, a simple process, as applying a wash; the other more complex, as fixing colors by mordants.

Stain v. i. To give or receive a stain; to grow dim.

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Etymology of 'Stained'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Stained" Quotes from Famous Books

... Odin's favor," returned Dankwart; and a wild light gleamed from his eyes, and he brandished his sword high over his head. "A place in Valhal is promised to us; for, him who bravely dies with his blood-stained sword beside him and his heart unrent with fears, the All-Father's victory-wafters will gently carry home. Even now, methinks, I sit in the banqueting-hall of the heroes, ...

— The Story of Siegfried • James Baldwin

... plainly dressed woman who buried her stained face in her apron, and wept the hard sobs of those who can scarcely weep more. A young girl clung to her, silent but with beautiful dark eyes wild with terror and loss. On the floor lay a wounded soldier, bearing in perfect silence the frightful pain of a shattered shoulder. His only ...

— The Boy Scouts in Front of Warsaw • Colonel George Durston

... smoking on a small inlaid table, which was stained with liqueur, burned by cigars, notched by the penknife of the victorious officer, who occasionally would stop while sharpening a pencil, to jot down figures, or to make a drawing on it, just ...

— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant

... dug-outs, on the march, sleeping in rat-ridden barns, or cruising the Channel to sweep mines. When she awoke in the night and heard the rain falling, she would picture the wet trenches, and she often looked at the calm still moon, and thought how it shone alike on peaceful white cliffs and on stained battle-fields in Flanders. The aeroplanes that guarded the coast were a source of immense interest at Brackenfield. The girls would look up to see them whizzing overhead. There was a poster at the school depicting hostile aircraft, and they often gazed into the sky with an apprehension ...

— A Patriotic Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil

... probably reach Ayrton the evening after. They particularly requested that no one should come to meet them on their landing. "We shall reach Southampton," wrote Mrs. Trevor, "tired, pale, and travel-stained, and had much rather see you first at dear Fairholm, where we shall be spared the painful constraint of a meeting in public. So please expect our arrival at about ...

— Eric • Frederic William Farrar

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