Meaning

noun a variable color that is vivid red but sometimes with an orange tinge

adjective of a color at the end of the color spectrum (next to orange); resembling the color of blood or cherries or tomatoes or rubies

originFrom Middle English scarlet, scarlat, borrowed from Old French escarlate (“a type of cloth”), from Medieval Latin scarlātum (“scarlet cloth”), of uncertain origin. This was long thought to derive from Classical Persian سقرلات (saqirlāt, “a warm woollen cloth”), but the Persian word (first attested in the 1290s) is now thought to be from Arabic سِقِلَّات (siqillāt), denoting very expensive, luxury…

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 3.0