sepia
(ˈsiːpɪə)
Also 6–7 sæpia, 9 seppia.
[a. L. sēpia, a. Gr. σηπία.
The Latin word gave It. seppia, F. sèche, Sp. jibia, Pg. siba; F. sépia in sense 2 is from It., as is prob. also the Eng. word in that sense.]
1. The cuttle-fish; now rare exc. Zool. a cuttle of the genus Sepia or family Sepiidæ; also, the genus itself.
| 1569 J. Sandford tr. Agrippa's Van. Artes 10 b, They seeke in Aristotle an easines, they reproue his darkenes, and call him Sepia [marg. A fishe called a Cuttell]. 1589 Pasquil's Ret. C j b, They are the very Spawnes of the fish Sæpia, where the streame is cleere..they vomit vp yncke to trouble the waters. 1607 T. Walkington Optic Glass i. B, The Sepia's inkie humor. 1683 Cave Ecclesiastici 333 Like the Fish Sepia, which being in danger to be taken by the Fisherman, throws out abundance of black Matter, which discolouring the Water all about, it safely escapes under that Covert. 1752 J. Hill Hist. Anim. 97 The body of the Sepia is of an oblong figure and depressed. 1771 Pennant Syn. Quadrup. 242 They..feed on lobsters, fish, Sepiæ, and shell fish. 1836 Buckland Geol. & Min. xv. §2 (1837) I. 307 [The ink-bags] contain the fluid which the living sepia emits in the moment of alarm. 1839 T. Beale Nat. Hist. Sperm Whale 58 The internal shell of the common sepia is large and broad. 1859–62 Sir J. Richardson, etc. Mus. Nat. Hist. (1868) II. 315 The Common Sepia or Cuttle⁓fish (Sepia officinalis). |
2. a. A pigment of a rich brown colour (used in monochrome water-colour painting) prepared from the inky secretion of the cuttle-fish; the colour of this pigment. Also called Roman sepia.
| 1821 Craig Lect. Drawing, etc. ii. 102 Water-colour sketches performed entirely in seppia, or bistre, or any brown colour. 1842 Baroness Bunsen in Hare Life (1879) II. ii. 46 Her outlines are in pen and sepia, like Flaxman's. 1861 Hulme tr. Moquin-Tandon ii. iii. ii. 82 The pigment used in water colour painting and known as Roman Sepia. 1891 Kipling Light that Failed viii, This shall be in sepia. It's a sweet material to work with. |
b. The inky secretion itself. rare.
| 1886 Globe 27 Oct. (Cassell), Nobody who has not tasted the great cuttle-fish, his feelers cut up and stewed in the black ink or sepia which serves him, apparently, for blood, can imagine how good he is. |
c. ellipt. A sepia drawing. [So Fr.]
| 1863 Life in Normandy I. 169 Will you shew the sepias to this gentleman? |
3. In full sepia bone: Cuttle-bone, esp. as used in pharmacy, etc.; = sepium.
| 1840 F. D. Bennett Narr. Whaling Voy. II. App. 290 The interior of the back [of the Flying-Squid] contains an elastic horny rod, or substitute for the ‘sepia bone’ that occupies the same part in some other tribes of the cuttle-fish. |
4. attrib. or as adj. a. = Of the colour of sepia; drawn in sepia. Also Comb., as sepia-coloured, sepia-eyed, sepia-like, sepia-tinted adjs.; sepia print (see quot. 1940).
| 1827 Hone Table Bk. I. 445 A sepia drawing. 1849 C. Brontë Shirley xi, Rich in crayon touches and sepia lights and shades. 1875 R. B. Sharpe Catal. Striges Brit. Mus. 154 The primary-coverts..inclining to sepia-brown. 1892 W. E. Woodbury Encycl. Photogr. 556 Black and sepia prints must not be washed together in the same dish. 1896 Century Mag. LI. 799/1 Dark-haired, sepia-eyed. 1899 J. Cagney tr. von Jaksch's Clin. Diagn. (ed. 4) 78 A sepia-like decomposition product. 1940 Chambers's Techn. Dict. 758/2 Sepia print.., a release print in which the image is dyed sepia instead of being left black. 1977 Spare Rib July 62/4 A marvellous collection of sepia prints showed women at work in the hospital's wards. |
b. Of American Blacks: euphem. for ‘black’. U.S.
| 1942 Berrey & Van den Bark Amer. Thes. Slang §32/8 Negro color distinctions... sepia. 1944 H. L. Mencken in Amer. Speech XIX. 166 Some of them also use such terms as..sepia to get away from the..inaccurate black, and in 1944 there was a Sepia Miss America contest. 1947 S. Lewis Kingsblood Royal xxiii. 138 A certain number of sepia merchants get rich on the rest of us chosen people. |