Stain

How to spell stain

5 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce stain

What does stain mean?

1. nounA discoloured patch or mark that is difficult to remove.
2. verbTo mark or discolour something, or to apply a coloured dye or finish.

Stain in a sentence

• noun

  A coffee stain spread across the white tablecloth.

• verb

  Spilled beetroot can stain a pale shirt within seconds.

• noun

  The cleaner could not lift the red wine stain from the carpet.

• verb

  They planned to stain the new oak shelves a deep walnut colour.

Where does stain come from?

Language of origin: French

The word stain reaches modern English from two streams that merged in the Middle Ages. The main source is the Old French verb desteindre, meaning 'to take the colour out of' or 'to discolour', built from the prefix des- ('away, reversing') and teindre 'to dye', which itself descends from the Latin tingere, 'to wet, soak, or dye'. In Middle English this clipped down to steinen, and along the way it was reinforced by the Old Norse verb steina, meaning 'to paint or colour'. Curiously, the original idea swung between adding colour and removing it, which is why a stain can be both an unwanted blemish and a deliberately applied wood finish. The Latin tingere is also the ancestor of 'tint' and 'tinge', a family resemblance worth remembering. Because the word is short and phonetically regular, the only mild trap is the 'ai' vowel spelling rather than 'ei' or a single 'a'.

How the word is built

• stain (single root verb/noun; no productive prefix or suffix)