redden, v.
(ˈrɛd(ə)n)
[f. red a. + -en5.]
1. trans. To make red, to impart a red colour to (a substance or thing).
| 1611 Cotgr., Saurir les harencs, to redden Herrings. 1697 Dryden Virg. Georg. iii. 741 Scarcely the Knife was redden'd with his Gore. ― æneid vii. 703 Refulgent Arms appear, Red'ning the Skies. 1725 Pope Odyss. xiii. 219 The blazing altars redden all the shore. 1800 tr. Lagrange's Chem. I. 132 This gas..reddens blue vegetable colours. 1837 M. Donovan Dom. Econ. II. 235 It may be mixed with..salt⁓petre to redden the meat. 1855 Tennyson Maud i. xix. vi, This was what had redden'd her cheek When I bow'd to her on the moor. 1871 B. Taylor Faust (1875) II. ii. iii. 129 All have fallen.., Reddening with their blood the water. |
2. a. intr. To grow or become red, to assume a red appearance.
| 1700 Congreve Way of World ii. iii, I have seen the warm confession reddening on your cheeks. 1710 Pope Windsor For. 394 For me the balm shall bleed,..The coral redden. 1791 Cowper Iliad xxi. 27 The waters as they ran, redden'd with blood. 1827 Keble Chr. Y., Burial Dead ii, Bright leaves, reddening ere they fall. 1847 Tennyson Princ. iv. 367 This anger reddens in the heavens. |
b. To become red (in the face) with shame, rage, etc.; to flush, blush.
| a 1648 Ld. Herbert Autobiog. (1886) 38 When occasion of offence was given him, I have seen him redden in the face. 1701 W. Wotton Hist. Rome 450 He would redden with Rage. 1781 Cowper Anti-Thelyphth. 204 Reddening with a just and generous pride. 1834 H. Martineau Farrers ii. 32 There was no more to be said; but Jane reddened all over. 1866 Geo. Eliot F. Holt (1868) 62 She reddened..and said,..‘I have a great admiration for Byron’. |
c. To grow ruddy with health.
| 1807 Crabbe Par. Reg. iii. 554 Here cloth'd and fed, no sooner he began To round and redden, than away he ran. |
d. Of a pullet: to acquire a deeper shade of red in the comb and wattles as the bird approaches maturity and prepares to begin laying.
| 1909 T. W. Sturges Poultry Man. vii. 106 When a pullet is about to redden up and develop her comb previous to laying, the change from one pen to another will check this development. 1950 N.Z. Jrnl. Agric. Oct. 332/3 If any [pullets] appear unlikely to start ‘reddening up’ for a month or more, they should..be sold immediately. 1967 T. R. Morris in T. C. Carter Environmental Control in Poultry Production ii. 27 Once the flock has begun to ‘redden up’ it is usually too late to alter sexual maturity. |