cochineal.

1. A red coloring material produced from the dried bodies of female cochineal insects.

2. A small cactus-feeding insect whose dried female bodies provide a red dye.

Use it for

Words that belong together

• cochineal dye
• color with cochineal
• cochineal pigment

On the page

The dyer added cochineal to deepen the wool's red.

The label identified cochineal as the source of the coloring.

Usage notes

Primary category: sensory / image-rich description. Lexical Type: Word. Forms: Uncountable for dye. Countable insect: singular cochineal; plural cochineals. Commonness: uncommon (editorial estimate; not a corpus frequency statistic). Legacy lexical fields mirror sense 1; numbered fields keep each relevant meaning separate. Research distinction: Direct full extraction: red dye from dried female cochineal insect bodies; separate cochineal insect sense. Contemporary textile/food/art dye uses observed. Individually checked for a distinct image, texture, sound, taste, smell, visual-perception or artistic function. Definitions/examples are original; sensory strength is not assumed to imply emotion. Writing functions: insect-derived red coloring, material origins in art and textiles.