Other forms: tinted, tints, tinting
A tint is a shade of colour, and the word is used in two rather precise ways. In colour theory a tint is a colour with white added, which makes pink a tint of red; in photography and printing a tint is a wash of colour laid across a whole image.
In everyday use it means simply a slight colouring — a blue tint to the glass, a tint of grey in his hair — and the note of slightness is always there, which is what separates a tint from a colour. The verb is common on cars and windows: tinted glass, tinted windows. And hairdressers use tint for a colour treatment lighter than a full dye. Compare shade, which is technically a colour with black added, and hue, which is the pure colour itself.
Latin tinctus meant dyed, from tingere, to dip or dye — the same verb behind tinge, tincture and, at a distance, stain. A tint has always been what happens when something is dipped briefly rather than soaked.
Proto-Indo-European
*teng-
Latin
tīnctus — dyed
French
teinte — tint
English, today
tint
Built from
Alteration of earlier tinct, influenced by French teinte (“tint”), from Latin tīnctus (“dyed”), past participle of verb tingō (“tinge”). a doublet of tent. Cognate with Dutch tint, Estonian tint, French teinte, German Tinte, Hungarian tinta, Italian tinta, lb Tintin, Portuguese tinta, and Spanish tinta.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA