Word.ws English Dictionary

red ink

/ˈɹɛdˌiŋk/

red ink noun: financial loss.

Noun

red ink (uncountable)

  1. (euphemistic, idiomatic) Financial loss.
    • GCN has gleefully swum against the political mainstream. Less comfortable has been the financial torrent that now washes the paper in red ink. Being out of step politically has meant not having access to lucrative advertisers.1991 December 1, Gordon Gottlieb, “The Struggle Continues”, in Gay Community News, volume 19, number 20, page 11
    Antonyms:
    black ink
  2. (idiomatic, slang) Cheap red wine.
  3. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see red, ink.

Antonyms of red ink

  • black ink

Questions about red ink

What does red ink mean?
Red ink means financial loss.
What part of speech is red ink?
Red ink is a noun.
How do you pronounce red ink?
Red ink is pronounced /ˈɹɛdˌiŋk/.

Words near red ink in the dictionary

  1. red imported fire ants
  2. red in the face
  3. red in tooth and claw
  4. Red Indian
  5. Red Indians
  6. red ink
  7. red ironwood
  8. red ironwoods
  9. red ivory
  10. red jackal
  11. red jackals

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: red ink (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-red ink.ogg.

Cite this entry: “red ink.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/red_ink. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.