Scarlet is a brilliant, vivid red color with a slight touch of orange, brighter and more intense than plain red. Think of a cardinal's feathers, a fire engine racing past, or the bright red uniforms British soldiers wore during the Revolutionary War.

In The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne used the color to symbolize shame when his main character had to wear a scarlet “A” on her clothing. In contrast, scarlet academic robes can mark the highest achievements in some universities.

Today we still use scarlet to describe things that are especially, memorably red. A person might turn scarlet with embarrassment when called on in class without knowing the answer. Scarlet fever, an illness that causes a bright red rash, gets its name from the color. When writers want to emphasize how red something is, they often choose scarlet instead of just red because it suggests something more vivid, more attention-grabbing, more impossible to ignore.