Ink

How to spell ink

3 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce ink

What does ink mean?

1. nounA coloured fluid or paste used for writing, drawing, or printing.
2. verbTo cover or mark something with ink, or informally to sign a deal or agreement.

Ink in a sentence

• noun

  The fountain pen ran out of ink halfway through the letter.

• verb

  The club hopes to ink the striker to a long-term contract this week.

• noun

  The printer warns me when the black ink is running low.

• verb

  The artist will ink the pencil sketch before adding colour.

Where does ink come from?

Language of origin: Greek

Ink reaches modern English from the Greek word enkauston, which literally meant 'burned in'. It described the deep purple-red fluid that late Roman and Byzantine emperors used to sign documents, a colour so prized that only the ruler could use it. The Greek root combined en, meaning 'in', with kaiein, 'to burn', because the heated pigment seemed fixed permanently into the surface. The term passed into Late Latin as encaustum, then into Old French as enque, and reached English in the 1200s. The journey from a fiery imperial signature to the everyday liquid in a pen is a long one, but the modern short spelling, just three letters, hides that grand origin entirely.

How the word is built

• ink (single root from Greek enkauston, a coloured writing fluid); no prefix or suffix