Another opportunity to look at the commonest senses of some similar-looking nouns with different endings and genders and ink in their differences. This week’s words are tinta (feminine) and tinto (masculine), and perhaps we should throw in tinte (masculine) too.
Starting with tinta (feminine), you can listen to its pronunciation here:
La tinta is a coloured liquid used together with a pen to make marks, often on paper. It’s ink.
tres paisajes dibujados a plumilla y en tinta negra
three landscapes drawn with a pen nib and black ink
Llevaba los dedos cubiertos de tinta.
Her fingers were covered in ink.
las manchas de tinta de bolígrafo
biro ink stains
La impresora avisa al usuario cuando la tinta está próxima a su fin.
The printer lets the user know when the ink is running out.
La tinta is also used metaphorically:
los ríos de tinta que se han gastado en escribir sobre el tema
the rivers of ink used up writing about the subject
La tinta is also the dark fluid released by octopuses, squid, cuttlefish (and cephalopods in general) to make the water murky and facilitate their escape from predators. Again la tinta translates as ink. Humans have used it both for cooking and, in the case of the substance produced by cuttlefish, even for making a brown ink.
Un calamar sin tinta es un ser indefenso que no puede protegerse de los envites enemigos.
A squid without ink is a defenceless creature unable to protect itself from enemy strikes.
Mateo se atracó de calamares en su tinta.
Mateo stuffed himself with squid in its own ink.
Moving on to tinto, you can listen to its pronunciation here:
Tinto is another dark-coloured liquid; in this case it usually refer to red wine. It’s short for vino tinto.
un tinto riojano
a red rioja
Considero que el tinto del Penedès es mejor que el blanco del Penedès.
I think Penedès red wine is better than Penedès white (wine).
In Colombia and Ecuador, tinto is used to mean black coffee:
El “tinto” es la denominación popular que recibe el café en Colombia.
Black coffee is colloquially called ‘tinto’ in Colombia.
Another closely related word is tinte (masculine), whose pronunciation can be heard here:
Un tinte is a coloured substance used in dyeing, in other words a dye:
La henna es un tinte natural.
Henna is a natural dye.
Usa el mismo tinte de pelo de color caoba que mi madre.
She uses the same mahogany-coloured hair dye as my mother.
DID YOU KNOW?
Tinto is also used as an adjective. When describing wine, it means red.
una copa de vino tinto
a glass of red wine
To dip into the commonest senses of some more similar-looking Spanish nouns with different endings and genders, come back next week.
