tincture [LME] A tincture was originally a dye or pigment. It comes from Latin tinctura ‘dyeing’, from tingere ‘to dye or colour’. Because dying involves making solutions and extracting active ingredients, it started to be used for a pharmaceutical extract in the early 17th century. The slang sense for ‘an alcoholic drink’ evolved from this in the early 20th century. A number of other words go back to tingere. Tint [E18th] was originally tinct, and tinge [L15th] comes from the sense ‘to colour’. Stain [LME] goes back to tingere via a shortening of distain, from Old French desteindre ‘tinge with a colour different from the natural one’.