A water-based coating or paint made with calcium compounds, used for whitewashing walls and ceilings; also called distemper or kalsomine.
Possibly from Latin 'calcis' (lime) + 'minimum' (red lead), or from 'calcimine' as a brand name. Used since the 1800s as an inexpensive interior wall finish.
Calcimine was the budget-friendly paint of the 1900s—it was cheap, easy to apply, and made interior walls bright white, but it was also notorious for rubbing off on anything that touched it, making it mostly obsolete today.
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