[Orig. a variant of LAC1]
1. A pigment of a reddish hue, originally obtained from lac (cf. LAC1 2), and now from cochineal treated as in 3.
1616. Bullokar, Lake, a faire red colour vsed by painters.
1622. Peacham, Compl. Gent., xiii. (1634), 130. Lay your colours upon your Pallet thus: first your white lead, then Lake.
1674. Beale’s Pocket Bk., in H. Walpole, Vertue’s Anecd. Paint. (1786), III. 131. Several parcells of Lake of my own makeing.
1728. Desaguliers, in Phil. Trans., XXXV. 608. Instead of Vermilion the red Paper may be painted with Carmine or Lake.
1816. J. Smith, Panorama Sci. & Art, II. 751. Deep Prussian blue and lake … form a purple of the next degree of excellence.
1859. Gullick & Timbs, Paint., 224. The common lake is prepared from Brazil wood.
2. transf. as the name of a color.
1660. Albert Durer Revived, 11. Lake … is an excellent Crimson-colour.
1686. Aglionby, Painting Illustr., I. 23. In imploying of fine Colours, as fine lacks Ultra Marine Green, &c.
1882. Garden, 7 Oct., 312/3. Of new flowers there are … Constancy, yellow, deeply edged with lake.
3. In extended sense: A pigment obtained by the combination of animal, vegetable, or coal-tar coloring matter with some metallic oxide or earth. Often preceded by some qualifying word, as crimson, Florence, green, madder, yellow, etc., lake. Indian lake: a crimson pigment prepared from stick-lac treated with alum and alkali.
1684. R. Waller, Nat. Exper., 137. How to take the Lake of any Flower.
1791. Hamilton, Berthollet’s Dyeing, I. I. I. ii. 37. If a solution of a colouring substance be mixed with a solution of alum … [and] if … we add an alkali … the colouring particles are then precipitated, combined with the alumine … this compound has got the name of Lake.
1812. Sir H. Davy, Chem. Philos., 430. The red juices of fruits were fixed by it [tungsten] so as to make permanent and beautiful lakes.
1822. Imison, Sci. & Art, II. 410. The lakes chiefly used are red colours, and these are of different qualities.
1853. W. Gregory, Inorg. Chem. (ed. 3), 204. Carmine is a lake of cochineal.
1866. Roscoe, Elem. Chem., xx. 180. Alumina … has the power of forming insoluble compounds called lakes with vegetable colouring matter.
1877. O’Neill, in Encycl. Brit., VII. 573/1. The precipitate is usually called the ‘lake’ of the particular metal and colouring matter.
4. Comb., as lake-red, vermilion sbs. and adjs.; lake-colo(u)red adj.
1764. Mus. Rust., I. 166, note. The lake-red used by the painters in enamel is composed of fine gold dissolved in aqua regia, with sal armoniac.
1796. Withering, Brit. Plants (ed. 3), IV. 214. Pileus fine lake red, changing with age to a rich orange and buff.
1882. Garden, 25 March, 196/2. A leafy cluster of blossoms … of a brilliant lake-vermillion hue.
1898. P. Manson, Trop. Diseases, i. 25. The black pigment shews up very distinctly in the homogeneous lake-coloured sheet of free hæmoglobin.
