Crimson is employed as a potent symbolic and visual tool in literature, evoking both the tangible and the emotional. It often denotes sumptuousness and vividness, as seen in references to a crimson silk purse ([1]) or ornate fabrics and luxurious draperies ([2], [3]). At the same time, the color serves as a metaphor for passion and intensity; characters flush crimson when overcome by embarrassment, anger, or passion ([4], [5], [6], [7]). Nature, too, is transformed by crimson, with descriptions of sunsets or skies bathed in deep red that suggest both beauty and impending doom ([8], [9], [10]). Whether marking dramatic emotional shifts or accentuating the richness of a physical setting—from a bruise on a character’s face ([11]) to the regal flourish of a crimson mantle ([12])—the word consistently infuses scenes with a dynamic and layered intensity ([13], [14]).
- The queer thing is there was quite a sum of money found on him, and a crimson silk purse.
— from The Silver Box: A Comedy in Three Acts by John Galsworthy
- "There is a crimson curtain in a trunk above stairs,—a little faded and moth-eaten, I'm afraid,—but Phoebe and I will do wonders with it."
— from The House of the Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne
- All coronets of degree actually, and are usually represented to, enclose a cap of crimson velvet, turned up with ermine.
— from A Complete Guide to Heraldry by Arthur Charles Fox-Davies
- "You know I love you," she said, and flushed crimson.
— from Project Gutenberg Compilation of Short Stories by Chekhov by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov
- I did not wonder that the blood rose to John’s face in a crimson tide.
— from The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie
- The youth's reply was an outburst of crimson oaths.
— from The Red Badge of Courage: An Episode of the American Civil War by Stephen Crane
- His criticisms of Russian women, whom he wished to study, more than once made Vronsky crimson with indignation.
— from Anna Karenina by graf Leo Tolstoy
- As the sun went down, the whole heavens became crimson and gold, and tinted the lilies with the hue of roses.
— from Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen by H. C. Andersen
- Till all the crimson changed, 5 and past Into deep orange o'er the sea, Low on her knees herself she cast, Before Our Lady
— from The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson by Baron Alfred Tennyson Tennyson
- The sky was a crimson battlefield of spring, but London was not afraid.
— from Howards End by E. M. Forster
- The old man looked at himself in it; his nose was considerably swollen, and on the left side of his forehead there was a rather large crimson bruise.
— from The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
- Dress me with a crimson mantle, grasp my hand and take me.
— from The gardener by Rabindranath Tagore
- Pestilence was known to have been foreboded by a shower of crimson light.
— from The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
- qirmisi , crimson; from Skt. krmi , a worm, insect, (i.e. the cochineal insect).
— from The Declaration of Independence of the United States of America by Thomas Jefferson