Visual Vocabulary: Incarnadine

Incarnadine: (adjective, can also be used as a noun and verb) of the blood-red color of raw flesh. As in:

“Whenever I read about the murders in the news I am struck by the dogged, almost touching assurance with which interstate stranglers, needle-happy pediatricians, the depraved and guilty of all descriptions fail to recognize the evil in themselves; I feel compelled, even, to assert a kind of spurious decency. “Basically I am a very good person.” This from the latest serial killer—destined for the chair, they say—who, with incarnadine axe, recently dispatched half a dozen registered nurses in Texas.”
—From The Secret History, by Donna Tartt

So do you think serial killers who think of themselves as “very good people” probably wear smiley face shirts when they’re cheerily committing acts of mass murder? (I’m decreasing the surplus population! I’m helping!) That’s what came to my mind. Just me? OK. If you say so.

Visual Vocabulary is a project I created for myself in which I attempt to sear new words into my memory by illustrating them.