Incarnadine

Incarnadine (pronounced in-kahr-nuh-dahyn, in-kahr-nuh-din or in-kahr-nuh-deen)

(1) A color classically blood-red but for commercial purposes also described as variations in the range of crimson, flesh-colored, pale pink etc.

(2) To make incarnadine; to tinge or stain with a reddish hue.

(3) In figurative use, bloodstained, bloody

1585–1595: From the Middle French, the feminine of incarnadin (flesh-colored), from the dialectal Italian incarnadino, a variant of incarnatino (carnation; flesh-colored), the construct being incarnat(o) (embodied; made flesh (the sense most familiar in ecclesiastical use in the form “incarnate”, from the Late Latin incarnātus (made flesh, incarnate)) + -ino.  The Italian suffix -ino was from the Latin -īnus, from the primitive Indo-European -iHnos (and comparable with the English -ine).  It was used (1) to form adjectival diminutives, (2) to indicate a profession, (3) to indicate an ethnic or geographical origin and (4) to indicate tools or instruments.  Incarnato was from Ecclesiastical Latin and the Late Latin incarnātus (having been made incarnate), the perfect passive participle of incarnō (to become or make incarnate; to make into flesh), the construct being in- (in, inside, within) + carō (flesh, meat; body (and ultimately from the primitive Indo-European ker & sker- (to cut off)) + -ō (the suffix used to form regular first-conjugation verbs).  The noun and verb were derived from the adjective and the senses (1) of the blood-red colour of raw flesh, (2) the figurative blood-stained; bloody (most famously as “blood on one’s hands”) and the noun use (blood-red colour of raw flesh) are the legacy of William Shakespeare’s (1564–1616) use of the word as a verb in the blood-soaked Macbeth (circa 1606).  In the technical language of the Roman Catholic Church, incardinate has the specific technical meanings (1) to raise someone to the rank of cardinal & (2) to enroll someone as a priest attached to a particular church.  Incarnadine is a noun, verb & adjective and incarnadined & incarnadining are verbs & adjectives; the noun plural is incarnadines.

The Shakespeare effect

William Shakespeare: Macbeth Act 2, Scene 2, 54–60:

[Knocking within] Macbeth:

Whence is that knocking?
How is't with me, when every noise appalls me?
What hands are here? Hah! They pluck out mine eyes.
Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood
Clean from my hand? No; this my hand will rather
The multitudinous seas incarnadine,
Making the green one red.

Shakespeare wasn’t actually unusual in his inventive ways with words, English then far from standardized and such “dictionaries” as existed sometimes offering different spellings and conflicting meanings.  Shakespeare probably felt no more entitled than any other writer to kick the language around but because what he wrote is celebrated as a core of the Western literary canon, what he did is both better remembered and granted a certain authority.  His attitude was probably something like the “low-level peaks & pokes” database administrators used to be able to use to solve immediate problems, even if such tricks weren't in the manual.  So, in the early 1600s, “the multitudinous seas incarnadine” would have been novel and what Shakespeare did was make a verb of incarnadine, a sixteenth century adjective meaning "pink", the sense derived from the Latin root carn- ("of flesh" and thus, in its derivatives, "the color of flesh").  “To incarnadine” thus meant turn something pink or light red and in the bard’s vivid imagery Macbeth imagines his bloodied hands turning Neptune's green ocean.  Under the influence of Shakespeare’s text, the verb and adjective have both come to refer to the color of blood itself (a range of crimson tones) rather than to the light red of a blood-stained sea.  This extends to the play as psychological drama, Macbeth coming to realize that no matter what, his guilt can never be washed off, even if the blood can be cleaned from his hands.  Instead, his guilt will poison the world around him for which the wide ocean is a metaphor and already in his hallucinations he sees his hands plucking out his eyes in retribution for the murder of Duncan.

Shakespeare would have approved the verbing: Lindsay Lohan incarnadining her lips, Playboy magazine photo-shoot, 2011.

However, for whatever reason,  Shakespeare didn’t use the word again although there was no shortage of death and blood in the dozen-odd plays he wrote after Macbeth and in all that he wrote, it’s the only occasion on which the word appears.  Maybe he didn’t like the effect or perhaps his critics were critical but it's surprising it didn't re-appear because his opportunities to seek some alternative to “red”, “crimson” or “scarlet” were not infrequent, some 74 unfortunate souls dying in his plays in the stage-scenes alone with the inherently bloody business of stabbing a popular means of dispatch.  Not surprisingly then, the word “blood” appears in Shakespeare's works 673 times.  The author’s neglect of incarnadine was matched by that of the general population and since the nineteenth century its most usual appearance in text has been in lists of obsolete and antique words and were it not for lexicographers preserving it thus, it might now be regarded as extinct which, for most practical purposes, it otherwise is.

Crooked Hillary Clinton in incarnadine pantsuit, a practical color in that one can wipe the blood from one’s hands without it showing.

Shakespeare makes Lady Macbeth a central character responsible for much violence and bloodshed yet one who avoids blood literally ending up on her hands.  It’s Lady Macbeth who goads and manipulates her husband into killing King Duncan so he may seize the throne of Scotland and make her queen.  She even plans the murder, taking part in the plot by making it appear others are responsible.  After the foul deed, Lady Macbeth begins to suffer from her role in the murder, haunted by visions of blood on her hands which she tries to wash off, symbolizing her inability to rid herself of the guilt she feels.

Color contrast ratios of incarnadine against while and black backgrounds.

It is a truly lovely color, a deep rich red less orange than the classic brick, darker than a bright cherry and lighter than a Merlot although those disturbed by such things might see also the color of raw steak and spilled blood.  It has survived as a technical term used in color charts, incarnadine listed as Hex #aa0022 (Color Mixture: Pink and Red & Color Hue/Base color: Red).  In the RGB color code model, Hex #aa0022 Color Code is created after adding 66.67% red color, 0% green color and 13.33% blue color.  Hex #aa0022 Color code in the CMYK color (process color) code model is generated after subtraction of 0% cyan, 100% magenta, 80% yellow and 33% black.  It’s a handy word for the manufacturers because it provides something different for the color charts, other variations of red including blood red, brick red, burgundy, cardinal, carmine, carnation, cerise, cherry, cherry red, Chinese red, cinnabar, claret, crimson, damask, fire brick, fire engine red, flame, flamingo, fuchsia, garnet, geranium, gules, hot pink, incarnadine, Indian red, magenta, ruddle, maroon, misty, mantle, rose, nacarat, oxblood, pillar-box red, pink, flush, Pompeian red, poppy, raspberry, red violet, rose, rouge, ruby, ruddy, salmon, sanguine, scarlet, shocking pink, rust, stammel, strawberry, Turkey red, rubricate, bloody, blooming, Venetian red, vermillion, vinaceous, vinous, violet & wine.

Concierge

Concierge (pronounced kon-see-airzh or kawn-syerzh (French))

(1) A person who has charge of the entrance of a building and is sometimes the owner's representative; a doorkeeper.  Historically, the role is most associated with residential buildings in large French cities but the role is increasingly common in both residential and commercial buildings in many countries.

(2) A member of a hotel staff in charge of certain services for guests including (1) those provided for a fee by third parties including securing tickets for the theatre, tours or other entertainment, taxis, airport transfers etc and (2) internal hotel matters such as baggage handling, delivering and collecting laundry, providing directions etc.  Many do offer certain services such as hire-cars (and most famously prostitution) on the basis of secret commissions.

(3) An employee stationed in an apartment house lobby who screens visitors, controls operation of elevators, accepts deliveries to the tenants, etc.

(4) A custodian or warden of a prison (obsolete).

(5) As concierge medicine (also known as retainer medicine), pertaining to or being medical care for which the patient pays the doctor an annual fee, either for special or additional services or to guarantee priority attention when required.

(6) A synonym of conciergerie or concergius (obsolete).

(7) As shopping concierge, a part of the gig-economy which offers personal assistance in shopping in a particular area, additionally providing services (such as international shipping) which may not be offered by a retailer.  Shopping concierges charge usually either by time or a percentage of the transactions effected (or a combination of both) and it's assumed secret commissions are also paid by retailers.  In an informal sense, the idea has been extended to the finance sector where concierge is sometimes used as slang to describe brokers.

1640-1650: From the twelfth century French concierge (caretaker, doorkeeper of a hotel, apartment house, prison etc; porter of uncertain origin.   It may have been from the Old French cumserges, which may be from the Vulgar Latin conservius, from the Latin conservus (fellow slave), an assimilated form, the construct being con- (from com-) (with, together) + serviēns, present participle of servīre (to serve) and related both to servius (slave) and the modern “serve”.  The con- prefix was from the Middle English con-, from the Latin con-, from the preposition cum (with), from the Old Latin com, from the Proto-Italic kom, from the primitive Indo- European ḱóm (next to, at, with, along).  It was cognate with the Proto-Germanic ga- (co-), the Proto-Slavic sъ(n) (with) and the Proto-Germanic hansō.  It was used with certain words to add a notion similar to those conveyed by with, together, or joint or with certain words to intensify their meaning.  Servus was from the Proto-Italic serwos (guardian), from the primitive Indo-European serwos (guardian) which may be related to ser- (watch over, protect); it was cognate with servō and the Avestan haraiti (he heeds, protects).  In Latin, over the years, servus (genitive servī, feminine serva) could be used to mean servant, serf or slave.  The suggestion, attributed to nineteenth century French novelists, that concierge is a contraction of comte des cierges (a servant responsible for maintaining the lighting and cleanliness of medieval palaces (literally “count of candles”) is considered a figment of the literary imagination.  Like English, some languages (such as German and Portuguese adopted the French spelling while others produced variants including the Catalan conserge, the Russian консье́рж (konsʹjérž), the Serbo-Croatian консијерж (konsijerž) and the Spanish conserje.  Concierge is a noun; the noun plural is concierges.

In historic documents, concierge appears sometimes to be a synonym for a number of roles but many of these are historically (and sometimes geographically) specific including castle-keeper, lodge-keeper of a château and jailor (or keeper) in a prison.  Even in modern use, there’s some overlap in function and a caretaker, custodian or janitor will perform some of the roles associated with a concierge but not all.  The greatest degree of overlap occurs in city hotels, the larger having clear distinctions between the duties undertaken by commissioners (doormen), porters and a concierge proper but these demarcations blur or disappear in smaller operations.  Concierge can be a concept as well as an individual, some hotels having concierge departments but staffing them without using anyone with the exact title.  In the France of L'Ancien Régime, the title was once attached to a high royal official of the household.  When the spellings (the original Latinized forms) were concergius or concergerius, the role was that of the guardian of a house or castle and in the later middle ages it came to be used for the court official who acted as the custodian of a royal palace.  In Paris, circa 1360, as the Palais de la Cité ceased to be a royal residence and became the seat of the courts of justice, the Conciergerie was turned into a prison, an institution for which L'Ancien Régime sometimes had great need. As late as the year leading up to World War I (1914-1918), in Europe it was common for a hotel's concierge to be referred to as a a "Suisse", reflecting the frequency with which men from Switzerland filled the role.

The Secret Society of the Les Clefs d’Or

Escutcheon of the Secret Society of the Les Clefs d'Or.

The Secret Society of the Les Clefs d’Or is the international organization of hotel lobby concierges.  Now with chapters in many countries, it was registered originally in Paris in 1929 as the Union Internationale des Concierges d'Hôtels (UICH) and this identity was maintained formally until 1995 when, at the 42^nd International Congress held in Sydney, Australia, a resolution was passed changing the name to Union Internationale des Clefs d'Or (UICO).  The international membership now exceeds 4000.  Properly pronounced as lay-clay-door, the literal translation from French is keys of gold, reflected in their membership symbol, most frequently seen as the twinned lapel pins worn by members, something remarkably similar to the escutcheon of the Holy See and neither the Vatican nor the Les Clefs d’Or has ever denied that a relationship may exist.  To become a member of Les Clefs d’Or, one must be at least twenty-one years of age, of good moral character and active within their concierge community.  Additionally, they must be employed by hotels in the usual sense of the word (not corporate or residential buildings) and have been employed thus for a minimum of five years (two if that service has been under the supervision of a member).  Also, the desk at which they work must have a sign that includes the word “concierge.”  Approval of membership is subject to the provision of documents, sponsorship by two existing members and a formal interview process.

Promotional poster for Il portiere di notte (The Night Porter (1974)), directed by Liliana Cavani (b 1933).  Note the crossed keys of the Les Clefs d'Or on the lapel.

Novelists and film makers have often been fond of concierges, presumably because they can be used as a quasi-narrator or linkage device between protagonists, the dramatic and comedic potential frequently (though not always convincingly) explored.  The best film in this sub-genre remains the cult favourite The Night Porter (1974), set in the high cold war Vienna of 1957 and starring Dirk Bogarde (1921–1999) as former Nazi concentration camp officer and Charlotte Rampling (b 1946) who had been one of his youthful inmates and one upon whom he imposed a sadomasochistic relationship.  Although not without flaws in its editing, The Night Porter is memorably evocative of the era and is more highly regarded now than at the time of its release.  In 2018 it was one of the films included in the Venice Classics at the Venice International Film Festival.

Dirk Bogart in The Night Porter with the paired crossed keys of the Les Clefs d'Or on the lapels.

Most concierges aren’t sadomasochistic (as far as is known) but they can still be involved in bizarre stuff.  One former member of the secret society is Australian Elvis Soiza (concierge at 111 Eagle Street, Brisbane) who says he can procure anything (as long as it's legal).  No longer a member because the Les Clefs d’Or restricts its rolls to those working in hotels, he notes there’s remarkably little difference between what’s done in a corporate building and a luxury hotel, the concierge still the “human face to a property” and one there to “offer advice, sooth, inform, entertain and organise”.  He sums up such buildings as “a hotel without bedrooms” (although Elon Musk may have blurred things a bit).

Lindsay Lohan usurping the escutcheon of the Les Clefs d'Or (digitally altered image).

During his years in hotels, Mr Soiza received many interesting requests but the most remarkable came in London during the 1980s when a Middle Eastern sheik asked him to arrange a pink elephant as a birthday surprise for his wife.  Thinking he needed a large stuffed toy he began to peruse the Harrods’ catalogue, only to be told the sheik wanted a real elephant, painted pink.  It took some doing, requiring Mr Soiza to coordinate a local circus, the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA), local government (it's not clear which one, the Greater London Council (GLC, 1965-1986) was in 1986 dissolved by the Thatcher government with its responsibilities assigned to existing borough councils), the Indian High Commission and the Metropolitan Police but, within twelve hours, he’d secured an elephant, had it painted pink, obtained the required permit and, with a police escort, had the beast led to the hotel in time for the birthday party.  Quite remarkable.

The original image (left), the photoshopped fake (centre) and an actual African pink elephant (a form of partial albinism).

Pink elephants are of course hard to find in London but they're rare anywhere.  On the internet, there have been claims the creatures can be found in parts of India, the color the result of the red soil in the environment, the creatures spraying dust on their hides to protect themselves from biting insects.  However, it turned out to be fake news, the supporting evidence created with Photoshop and wildlife experts that while elephants cover themselves in mud, this doesn’t change the colour of their skin.  It's true there is a rare genetic disorder (technically a form of albinism) which can result in the skin of young African elephants displaying a slight pink hue but it's nothing like the vivid hot pink in the Photoshopped fake news.

Collar

Collar (pronounced kol-er)

(1) The part of a shirt, coat, dress, blouse, etc that encompasses the neckline of the garment and is sewn permanently to it, often so as to fold or roll over.

(2) A similar but separate, detachable article of clothing worn around the neck or at the neckline of a garment.

(3) Anything worn or placed around the neck.

(4) In law enforcement, a slang term for securing an arrest.

(5) In metalworking, a piece rolled to wrap itself around a roller.

(6) In biology, a marking or structure resembling a collar, such as that found around the necks of some birds.

(7) In engineering, a section of a shaft or rod having a locally increased diameter to provide a bearing seat or a locating ring

(8) In butchery, a cut of meat, especially bacon, from the neck of an animal.

(9) In ancient chivalric orders, a symbol of membership.

(10) In jewelry, an ornament for the neck, a variant of which is the choker.

(11) In rehabilitative medicine, a device worn around the neck to support the head.

(12) In architecture, a variety of beams and ties which are structural elements in roof framing between rafters.

(13) In baseball, a slang term for a player getting no hits in a game.

(14) In plumbing, a type of sleeve used to join two tubes.

(15) In industrial power generation, a piece of hardware used on power transmission devices as a mechanical stop, locating device, or bearing face.

(16) In the profession of the hangman, the knot of the noose (archaic).

(17) In extractive underground mining, a curb or a horizontal timbering around the mouth of a shaft.

(18) In botany, the neck or line of junction between the root of a plant and its stem.

(19) A ring-like part of a mollusk in connection with the esophagus.

(20) In nautical architecture, an eye formed in the bight or bend of a shroud or stay to go over the masthead; also, a rope to which certain parts of rigging, as dead-eyes, are secured.

(21) In financial market jargon, a trading strategy using options in a ways that there exists both an upper limit on profit and a lower limit on loss, constructed through taking equal but opposite positions in put and call options with different strike prices.

1250–1300: From the Middle English coler from the Anglo-French colier & Old French coler, derived from the Latin collāre (neckband, collar), the construct being coll (truncation of collum (neck)) + āre (neuter (as noun) suffix of āris).  Ultimate source was the primitive Indo-European kwol(o) (neck) which entered both the Old Norse and the Middle Dutch as hals (neck), literally "that on which the head turns" from the root kwel (move round, turn about).

The meaning "border at the neck of a garment” emerged in the fourteenth century and all meanings since are in some way analogous.  Collier exists in Modern French, again from the Latin; cognate with the Gothic hals, the Old English heals and the Spanish cuello.

Collars

Noted for slogans rather than imaginative linguistic flourishes, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison (b 1968; Australian prime-minister since 2018), a confessed meat-eater, was so shocked at the tactics some rabid vegans had used to disrupt the slaughter industry's supply chains, he was moved to describe the protesters, inter alia, as “green-collar criminals”.  He’d likely have preferred to label them eco-terrorists and have them locked-up somewhere but may have been advised that might be unlawful or at least hyperbolic.  Interestingly the phrase “green-collar crime” is used both to describe some of the actions of activists and the environmental damage against which they’re protesting; it’s not clear which meaning will prevail and it's an amusing if confusing co-existence.

It’s among the most recent of the “collar” words, all variations of the old white-blue collar delineation (except the ecclesiastical dog collar which is from the nineteenth century).  Blue collar worker was used first in 1924 to describe the working class, an allusion to the hard-wearing blue denim they stereotypically wore.  White-collar worker was coined in the 1930s by US writer Upton Sinclair (1878–1968) in connection with those absorbed in clerical, administrative and managerial functions.  Used mostly in economics and sociology, the collars have been handy (if imprecise) definitional shorthand in both academic and other writing.

Blue collar:  Originally, a member of the working class who performs manual work and earns either an hourly wage or is paid a piece rate.  The labor market in recent decades has changed so much that for economists it may now be a useless or al least misleading term although culturally, it is still of real utility.   

White collar:  Historically, salaried professionals, office workers and management; ie clean, safe jobs in pleasant physical environments although for many, salaries were low.

Pink collar: Now probably obsolete, it described a member of the working class in the service industry in occupations such as waiters and retail or other roles involving relations with people.  Origin of the term was the need to describe the rapidly expanding employment in service industries during the 1990s and its overwhelmingly female demographic.  Now treated as sexist, there were suggestions it could morph into something gender-neutral but it didn’t work as well and is now close to extinct although the companion pink collar crime endures and remains a descriptor of white collar crimes committed by women where the loot stolen is of relatively low-value.

Gold collar:  A highly skilled multi-disciplinarian who combines the intellectual and practical skills of both white & blue collar employees.

Red collar:  Government workers of all types.  In China, it refers also to Communist Party officials working in private companies, the implication being they’re placed there for some party purpose; similar in both function and ultimate purpose but different in ideology to the old party commissars.  

Grey collar: Skilled technicians, typically someone whose role is a mix of white and blue collar (although some say the distinction between grey and gold is a bit vague; notion is that gold are higher paid than grey).  Like gold, grey collar is a recent invention which seems not to have caught on; both may die out.

New collar:  Jobs said to require the technical and soft skills needed to work with contemporary technology industry; often associated with a non-traditional education path.  Cynics suggest it’s there to describe university drop-outs whose start-ups work out ok.

Happy times in dog collars.  Cardinal George Pell (1941-2023, left) with his predecessor as Archbishop of Melbourne, Sir Frank Little (1925–2008, right).  Within the Roman Curia (a place of Masonic-like plotting & intrigue and much low skulduggery), Cardinal Pell's nickname was “Pell Pot”, an allusion to Pol Pot (1925–1998, dictator of communist Cambodia 1976-1979) who announced the start of his regime was “Year Zero” and all existing culture and tradition must completely be destroyed and replaced.

Dog collar:  Christian clergy (although, technically, only a sub-set of the whole); now rarely seen outside of churches and courtrooms.  In the public consciousness, such is the association of the male clergy with pedophilia that the clergy, when out and about, usually do so in disguise (mufti).  That's actually not new.  One of the (many) reasons Jesuit priests were once so mistrusted was that they tended not to wear clerical garb, claiming the wearing of everyday clothes permitted them to be closer to the people.  Actually, it was just a trick so they could spy on them.

No collar:  Artists, the precariously employed and others who tend to privilege passion and personal growth over financial gain.

Orange collar:  Prison laborers, named for the orange jumpsuits most associated with inmates in the US prison system.

Green collar:  Workers in a wide range of professions relating to the environment and renewable energy.  Confusingly, green collar crime is used by both sides to describe the actions of their opponents in that activists refer to those accused of causing environmental damage as green collar criminals whereas the slaughter industry uses the same label for the radical vegans who disrupt their production or distribution.

Scarlet collar:  Prostitutes and ancillary staff (brothel receptionists et al included in an example of the way the "collar" labels are sometimes applied to industry sectors as well as specific occupations).

Black collar:  Originally used to describe manual laborers in jobs when workers habitually become very dirty although it has been extended to those working in the illicit black economy.  Of late it’s been applied also to (1) the pro-gun movement in the US, (2) artists who have adopted black clothing by choice and (3) those in insecure, low-paid employment.  The meaning may now be too diluted to be of much use.

Virtual collar:  Robots performing manual repetitive tasks, both physical and virtual but has been used also to describe the cheap, mobile technology capital uses as a tool of control.

Rainbow collar:  Workers in industries which serve or are most identified with the LGBTQQIAAOP community.  This was once a largely volunteer movement but increasing has a paid-labor component.  The adjectival rainbow, in polite society, has now wholly supplanted pink (eg the earlier pink dollar), partly because of the historical use of pink labels or descriptors by repressive régimes.  Pink collar was never linked with the LGBTQQIAAOP community and the earlier lavender collar enjoyed only a brief linguistic career.

Lindsay Lohan in army green, fur-collared jacket over blouse with metal studded collar, New York, March 2014.

Rainbow

Rainbow (pronounced reyn-boh)

(1) An arc-shaped spectrum of color seen in the sky opposite the Sun, especially after rain, caused by the refraction and reflection of sunlight by droplets of water suspended in the air.  Secondary rainbows that are larger and paler sometimes appear within the primary arc with the colors reversed (red being inside). These result from two reflections and refractions of a light ray inside a droplet.  The colors of the rainbow are violet, indigo, blue, green, yellow, orange, and red.  

(2) A similar bow of colors, especially one appearing in the spray of a waterfall or fountain.

(3) Any brightly multi-colored arrangement or display.

(4) A wide variety or range; gamut.

(5) A visionary goal, sometimes illusory (as in “chasing rainbows”).

(6) In DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) politics, as a modifier, of or relating to a political grouping together by several minorities, especially representatives from multiple identity groups, as those identifying variously by race, ethnicity, gender, and sexual orientation.

(7) The flag of the LGBTQQIAAOP movement.

(8) In zoology, a descriptor used in some species (rainbow lorikeet, rainbow trout etc).

(9) In baseball jargon, a curveball, particularly a slow one.

(10) In the slang of poker (Texas hold 'em or Omaha hold 'em), a flop that contains three different suits.

(11) In the UK Girl Guide Association (as the Rainbow Guides), the faction containing the youngest group of girls (aged 5-7 years).

Pre 1000: From the Middle English reinbowe & reinboȝe, from the Old English reġnboga & rēnboga (rainbow), from the Proto-Germanic regnabugô (rainbow; literally rain +‎ bow (arch).  It was cognate with the Old Norse regnbogi, the West Frisian reinbôge, the Dutch regenboog, the German Regenbogen, the Danish regnbue, the Swedish regnbåge and the Icelandic regnbogi, all of which translated as “rainbow).  Rainbow is a noun, verb & adjective, rainbowing is a verb, rainbowed is a verb & adjective and rainbowlike & rainbowish are adjectives; the noun plural is rainbows.

A fire rainbow (circumhorizontal arc). 

A fire rainbow is an atmospheric optical phenomenon which occurs when (1) the Sun sits above 85^o and (2) ice crystals in high-altitude cirrus cloud formations exist in sufficient volume.  What that conjunction creates is a jagged, horizontal band of colors; it’s a rarely recoded spectacle although the number of photographs has increased since smartphones became ubiquitous.  In nephology (the branch of meteorology focused on clouds and cloud formation), the phenomenon is describes as a “circumhorizontal arc” but most folk prefer the more evocative “fire rainbow”.

The Rainbow Flag

The rainbow flag is more commonly known as the gay pride or LGBTQQIAAOP (usually truncated to LGBTQI+) pride flag although it has been co-opted for other purposes.  It was designed in 1978 by San Francisco artist Gilbert Baker (1951-2017) using eight colors but has long been displayed with six stripes, red at the top as it appears in a natural rainbow.  The original colors were assigned thus:

Hot pink: Sex
Red: Life
Orange: Healing
Yellow: Sunlight
Green: Nature
Turquoise: Art
Indigo: Harmony
Violet: Spirit

Gilbert Baker's original eight-stripe design (1978, left), the version with hot pink deleted because of supply difficulties with the fabric (1978-1979, centre) and the six-stripe version (more or less) standardized since 1979 with royal blue substituted for indigo & turquoise (right).

However, for technical reasons, hot pink proved difficult to produce in volume and was deleted, the first commercial release having seven stripes but within a year it was again modified.  When hung vertically from the lamp posts of San Francisco's Market Street, the centre stripe was obscured by the post and changing to an even number of stripes was the easiest fix.  Thus emerged the final version: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and violet.  On its 25^th anniversary in 2003, Gilbert Baker advocated the original design be restored but there’ was little support, the six-stripe standard clearly having reached critical mass although there have been one-off variations such as the addition of a black stripe symbolizing those community members lost to AIDS.  Aged 65, Mr Baker died in New York City on 31 March 2017.

Unfurling the flag: Emperor Dale on the Gay and Lesbian Kingdom of the Coral Sea Islands.  The plaque in the sand contains the words of the kingdom's  declaration of independence.

In June 2004, activists from the G and L factions of the LGBTQQIAAOP collective sailed to Australia's almost uninhabited Coral Sea Islands Territory and proclaimed the now liberated lands independent, calling it the Gay and Lesbian Kingdom of the Coral Sea Islands (GLK) with the rainbow flag its official standard.  It was a symbolic gesture with no validity in domestic or international law, the declaration in response to the Australian government's refusal to recognize same-sex marriage.  Undeterred by such tiresome details, the GLK immediately issued stamps, the official website listing tourism, fishing and philatelic sales as its only economic activities but that swimming, reef walking, lagoon snorkeling, bird-watching, seashell-collecting, and shipwreck-exploring were all GLK sanctioned non-economic activities.

Then Senator Eric Abetz.

Fearing it’s assertion of independence seemed not to be making much impression on the former colonial oppressor, on 13 September 2004 the GLK declared war on Australia.  Neither the declarations of statehood or war attracted much attention until February 2017 when, in a Senate estimates hearing on finance and public administration, Senator Eric Abetz (b 1958; senator for Tasmania (Liberal) 1994-2022) objected to the GLK's flag being hung in the Department of Finance’s building on the grounds that (1) government departments should take a neutral stand on political debates and (2) it was wrong to hang in government buildings the flag of an aggressive, hostile state (the GLK) which had declared war on Australia, the comparison presumably that the swastika wasn't hung in the White House or Downing Street during World War II (1939-1945).  The finance minister, Senator Mathias Cormann (b 1970; senator (Liberal) for Western Australia 2007-2020, minister for finance 2013-2020, Secretary-General of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) since 2021) agreed, assuring Senator Abetz he would ensure “…there are no flags of hostile nations anywhere in any government building.”

Stamps of the GLK authorized for issue by the edict of Emperor Dale Parker Anderson (b 1965).

Self-described as a "gay 22×-great-grandson of King Edward II (who was also born gay) and a direct descendant of all English kings & queens down to King Richard III", the emperor traces his family back to the fifteenth century marriage of the Earl of Huntington to Princess Catherine of England.  Despite the emperor's illustrious lineage from an age of absolutism and the divine right of kings, the GLK was established as a constitutional monarchy.  While the GLK never released details about the extent to which it could be considered a democracy with institutions such as a representative & responsible legislative assembly or an independent judiciary, the spirit seemed not to be despotic.  As a new state, the GLK might even have appeared with a system as genuinely novel as monarchical anarchy.    

Fobbed off.

While no governments granted recognition to the GLK as a sovereign state or established diplomatic relations, the chief of staff in Queensland's Department of Premier and Cabinet did in 2004 write to Emperor Dale Parker Anderson which suggested at least a tacit acknowledgment of the existence of the GLK which sat off Queensland's east coast.  There's no record of further communication between any level of Australian government and the GLK and nor does it appear the GLK made any attempt to secure even observer status in any international bodies.  Following the Australian people voting to make lawful same-sex marriage, the GLK was on 17 November 2017 dissolved and the state of war officially lapsed.  There were no casualties.

Kim Jong-un (Kim III, b 1982; Supreme Leader of DPRK (North Korea) since 2011) celebrates the happy news.

With the passage of the Marriage Amendment (Definition and Religious Freedoms) Act (2017), same-sex marriage was made lawful in Australia, the law coming into effect on 9 December 2017 with recognition simultaneously extended to same-sex marriages performed in other jurisdictions.  With that, so concluded was one of the battles in the culture wars and it was notable for having been conducted in an untypically democratic way, the bill for the act introduced into parliament following a voluntary postal survey of all Australians.  When the votes were counted, the “Yes” case had prevailed by 61.6 to 38.4% on a turnout of 79.52% (12,727.920 of the 16,006,180 registered voters).  For a non-compulsory (and non-binding) plebiscite in a country with compulsory voting in regular elections, the turnout was thought high, especially given it required responders to seal the form in the supplied envelope and put it in a mailbox; for a significant part of the population, it was probably their first visit to a mailbox.  The novel idea of the a non-compulsory postal vote came from Malcolm Turnbull (b 1954; prime-minister of Australia 2015-2018) whose brief leadership was a rare interlude of political sanity for the Liberal Party which for much of the past two decades has been led by right-wing fanatics, religious weirdos, soft-drink salesmen and suspected Freemasons.  What Mr Turnbull wanted to avoid was the issue becoming something divisive between the Liberal Party’s factions and by off-loading the decision from the politicians to the people, the trick worked.  Amusingly, Mr Turnbull once delivered a speech in which he assured his audience there were: “no factions in the Liberal Party”; there was laughter.  Unfortunately (though understandably), the postal survey was modest in that it dealt only with same-sex relationships and didn’t extend to the objectum community, despite in theology and philosophy there being no history of objection to those wishing to marry objects.

Slender rainbow: Lindsay Lohan in a vintage Hervé Leger bandage dress at the Gansevoort Hotel, NYC, May 2007.

The distinctive colors of the rainbow flag and their simple, geometric deployment in stripes have made the flag a popular design.  At the human scale it can be applied to just about any article of clothing and worn as a political statement either of self-identity or an expression of inclusiveness and although the motif can exist at the level of fashion, regardless of intent, the design is now so vested with meaning that probably it's always interpreted as political.

The Brandenburg Gate, Berlin, bathed in a rainbow flag projection during a vigil for victims of a shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando, June 2016.

Bold, horizontal stripes on a rectangle are perhaps uniquely suited to being deployed at scale and can thus be an aspect of representational architecture but even structures in the built environment with little relationship to the straight lines and right angles of the rectangle offer a suitable canvas.  Because the stripes can flow across and around even the most complex curves and there's no inherent hierarchy in the significance of the colors, if a treated shape emphasizes some and minimizes others, it matters not because the meaning is denoted by the whole.

Flying the rainbow flag: Members of Gay Men Fighting AIDS with their pink SPG, London for Pride Parade, 24 June 1995.

In service with both the British and Indian armies variously between 1965-2016, Vickers built 234 of the FV433 "Abbot" 105 mm Self-Propelled Gun (SPG) Field Artillery vehicles, using the existing FV430 platform with the addition of a fully-rotating turret.  The factory project code (and informal military designation) was “Abbot”, in the World War II (1939-1945) British tradition of using ecclesiastical titles for self-propelled artillery (following the Bishop, Deacon & Sexton).  The official model name was “L109” but to avoid confusion with the US-built 155 mm “M109” howitzer, 144 of which also entered British Army service in 1965, this rarely was used.  While the sight of a cluster of gay men atop a pink SPG might have frightened a few, the thought of one in the hands of a pack of lesbians truly is terrifying.

The progress flag

The concept of the rainbow flag continues to evolve.  Although the text string has been appended as the factions in sexual politics achieved critical mass in acceptability, while the "T" in LGBTQQIAAOP included the trans community, their flags and banners had been separate.  One suggestion to achieve more inclusive vexillological recognition was the "progress flag" (sometimes with initial capitals) which in its latest form is defined:

Red: Life
Orange: Healing
Yellow: New Ideas
Green: Prosperity
Blue: Serenity
Violet: Spirit
Black & Brown: People of Color
White, blue & pink: Trans people
Purple circle on yellow: Intersex

The intersex component was in 2021 interpolated by Valentino Vecchietti, an activist with the UK’s Intersex Equality Rights movement, building on the original progress flag designed in 2018 by US graphic artist Daniel Quasar who had added the five-striped chevron.  The element Vecchietti used was the intersex flag, first displayed in 2013 by Australian bioethicist Morgan Carpenter, the design rationale of which was the purple and yellow being positioned as a counterpoint to blue and pink, traditionally binary, gendered colors, the choice of the circle being to represent “…being unbroken, about being whole, symbolizing the right to make our own decisions about our own bodies.”  Carpenter has noted that statement is not an abstraction, non-consensual surgeries still being performed in many places.  The new design reflects recent internal LGBTQQIAAOP politics which have for some time focused on inclusivity underneath the broader LGBTQ+ umbrella, the feeling being intersex people have long been not only underrepresented but also visually undepicted in the Pride imagery ubiquitous in clothing, events and publicity materials.  The only community which continues to be excluded is the objectum (those for whom objects of romantic affection are objects) and never has the basis for this discrimination been explained.