Definitions for kermes

kermes ker·mes

Spelling: [kur-meez]
IPA: /ˈkɜr miz/

Kermes is a 6 letter English word. It's valid Scrabble word worth 12 points. It's valid Words with friends word worth 13 points.

You can make 74 anagrams from letters in kermes (eekmrs).

Definitions for kermes

noun

  1. a red dye formerly prepared from the dried bodies of the females of a scale insect, Kermes ilices, which lives on small, evergreen oaks of the Mediterranean region.
  2. the oak itself, of the genus Quercus coccifera.

Origin of kermes

1590-1600; French kermès Arabic qirmiz Persian; replacing earlier chermez Italian chermes Arabic as above; see crimson

Examples for kermes

In the Middle Ages the dye from the kermes was still called “vermiculata,” of which the word vermilion is a literal translation.

The mineral red now called vermilion must have borrowed its name from the insect dye which the Greeks and Romans called “kermes.”

The composition writhes and twists about like the kermes of Rubens.

The kermes, however, were not indigenous to Arabia, as the Arabs appear to have no name for them.

With the real nature of kermes the ancients were not acquainted.

The kermes falls down in a brown-red powder, as the liquor cools.

Nitre fixed by charcoal, and resolved into a liquor, is the only alkali employed in preparing the kermes.

The Polish kermes (Coccus polonicus) was formerly used very much in Europe.

Wash all these sediments with warm water, till they become insipid; then dry them, and you have the kermes Mineral.

In the department of the Bouches-du-Rhone, one half of the kermes crop is dried.

Word Value for kermes
Scrable

12

Words with friends

13

Similar words for kermes
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