ingrain

English

Alternative forms

• engrain

Etymology

Inherited from Middle English engreynen, from the French phrase en grain; reinforced by the phrase (dyed) in grain. See grain.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ɪŋˈɡɹeɪn/

• Audio (Southern England)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -eɪn

Verb

ingrain (third-person singular simple present ingrains, present participle ingraining, simple past and past participle ingrained)

1. (transitive) To dye with a fast or lasting colour.
2. (transitive, figuratively) To make (something) deeply part of something else.

   Synonyms: breed in the bone, embed, infix, instill, radicate

   The dirt was deeply ingrained in the carpet.

   The lessons I learned at school were firmly ingrained in my mind.

Translations

to dye with lasting color

• Finnish: värjätä (fi), syvävärjätä

to make something deeply part of something else

• Bulgarian: пропивам (bg) (propivam)
• Finnish: piintyä (fi) (esp. fig.); pinttyä (fi)
• Russian: укореня́ть (ru) (ukorenjátʹ)

Adjective

ingrain (not comparable)

1. Dyed with grain, or kermes.
2. Dyed before manufacture; said of the material of a textile fabric.
3. (figurative, by extension) Thoroughly inwrought; forming an essential part of the substance.
   • 1855 December – 1857 June, Charles Dickens, Little Dorrit, London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1857, →OCLC, book the first (Poverty), page 249:

     When were such changes ever made in men's natural relations to one another: when was such reconcilement of ingrain differences ever effected!

Derived terms

• ingrain wallpaper

Noun

ingrain (plural ingrains)

1. An ingrain fabric, such as a carpet.

Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.
(See the entry for “ingrain”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.)

Anagrams

• Ingrian, raining