Meaning

noun Eurasian plant with pink to purple-red spice-scented usually double flowers; widely cultivated in many varieties and many colors

noun a pink or reddish-pink color

adjective pink or pinkish

originFrom Middle French carnation (“flesh color, complexion”), either via Italian carnagione (“flesh color”) or directly from Late Latin carnātiō (“fleshiness”), from Latin carō (“flesh, meat”) + ātiō (“-ation”). As a flower and its color, possibly instead from corruption in French of coronation (“crowning, crowned thing”) under the influence of carnation, from the flower's supposed resemblance to a…

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 3.0