Definition of "vermeil"

vermeil

/ˈvɜː.meɪl/

adjective
comparative more vermeil, superlative most vermeil
1. (poetic, now rare) Bright scarlet, vermilion.
  Quotations
  And in her cheekes the vermeill red did shew / Like roses in a bed of lillies shed […].
  1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book II, Canto III”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie
  Many and many a verse I hope to write,Before the daisies, vermeil rimm’d and white,Hide in deep herbage;
  1818, John Keats, Endymion‎, Book I, lines 49-51
2. (poetic, now rare) Specifically of faces, lips etc.: red, ruddy, healthy-looking.
  Quotations
  his carriage; demeanor, and venerable behaviour, in a face so young, vermeill, and heart enflaming […].
  1603, Michel de Montaigne, chapter 36, in John Florio, transl., The Essayes […], book II, London: […] Val[entine] Simmes for Edward Blount […]
noun
plural vermeils
1. (poetic) Vermilion; bright red.
  Quotations
  The mortall steele stayed not till it was seene / To gore her side; yet was the wound not deepe, / But lightly rased her soft silken skin, / That drops of purple blood thereout did weepe, / Which did her lilly smock with staines of vermeil steep.
  1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book III, Canto I”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie
2. Silver gilt or gilt bronze.
3. A liquid composition applied to a gilded surface to give luster to the gold.