CRIMSON, the name of a strong, bright red colour tinged to a greater or less degree with purple. It is the colour of the dye produced from the dried bodies of the cochineal insect (Coccus cacti). The word, in its earlier forms cremesin, crymysyn, also cramoysin, cf. “cramoisy,” the name of a red cloth, is adapted from the Med. Lat. cremesinus for kermesinus or carmesinus, the dye produced from the insect Kermes (Coccus ilicis), Arab. quirmiz, which Skeat (Etym. Dict., 1898) connects with the Sanskrit krimi, cognate with Lat. vermis and Eng. “worm.” From the Lat. carminus, a shortened form of carmesinus, comes “carmine” (q.v.).
CRINAGORAS, of Mytilene, Greek epigrammatist, flourished during the reign of Augustus (Strabo xiii. p. 617). A number of epigrams appear under his name in the Greek Anthology. From inscriptions discovered at Mytilene, he appears to have been one of the ambassadors sent from that city to Rome in 45 and 26 B.C.
The epigrams have been edited by M. Rubensohn (1888).
CRINOLINE (a Fr. word formed of the Lat. crinis, hair, and linum, thread), a stiffening material made of horse-hair and cotton or linen thread. Substitutes for this, such as the straw-like material used in making hat shapes, are also known by the same name. From the use of the material to expand ladies’ skirts the term was applied, during the third quarter of the 19th century, when the fashion of wearing greatly expanded skirts was at its height, to the whalebone and steel hoops employed to support the skirts thus worn (see [Costume]). The term is also used of structures resembling these articles, especially of the framework of booms, spars and netting forming a protection for a warship against torpedo attack.
CRINUM, a genus (nat. ord. Amaryllidaceae) of bulbous plants with rather broad leaves and a solid leafless stem, bearing a cluster of handsome white or red funnel-shaped regular flowers. They are well known in cultivation, and owing to the wide distribution of the genus different methods are adopted with different species. Some require the hot, moist temperature of a stove; such are C. amabile, a native of Sumatra, C. amoenum (India), C. Balfourii (Socotra), C. giganteum (West tropical Africa), C. Kirkii (Zanzibar), C. latifolium (India), C. zeylanicum (tropical Asia and Africa), and others. Others thrive in a greenhouse; such are C. asiaticum, a widely distributed plant on the sea-coast of tropical Asia, C. capense and C. longiflorum, from the Cape, and C. Macowani and C. Moorei from Natal. C. asiaticum, C. capense and C. Macowani will also thrive in sheltered positions in the garden.