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zelyonka

zelyonka noun: brilliant green, especially when thrown on the body of a victim in Russian politically-motivated attacks.

zelyonka: brilliant green, especially when thrown on the body of a victim in Russian politically-motivated...
Image: Evgeny Feldman, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

zelyonka (uncountable)

  1. Brilliant green, especially when thrown on the body of a victim in Russian politically-motivated attacks.
    • Technically, it’s known as a triarylmethane dye. In drugstores, it’s sold under the name Brilliant Green. But generations of Soviet citizens knew it as “zelyonka” (the green). […] After an application of zelyonka, a wound dries and forms a scab within a few hours.2017 May 10, Oleg Kashin, “Russian Terrorism Now Comes in Green!”, in The New York Times

Origin of zelyonka

From Russian зелёнка (zeljónka, “zelyonka”).

Questions about zelyonka

What does zelyonka mean?
Zelyonka means brilliant green, especially when thrown on the body of a victim in Russian politically-motivated attacks.
What part of speech is zelyonka?
Zelyonka is a noun.

Words near zelyonka in the dictionary

  1. zels
  2. Zeltinger
  3. Zeltingers
  4. Zelus
  5. Zelver
  6. zelyonka
  7. zem
  8. Zemaitis
  9. Zemaitises
  10. Zemanek
  11. Zemaneks

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: zelyonka (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.

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