glaucous
1
9.9
- adjective
- /ˈɡlɔːkəs/
- Specialized
:
glaucoso
- But in the late afternoon, with the tours gone, Pompeii is clean like glaucous green, pale and yellower, and not as bright as tourmaline.
- glaucous foliage
- glaucous leaves
- glaucous green
Examples
-
The sea, when it reflects these mountains, turns a glaucous color.
Academic text (2007) -
But last night, tired from my readings and meditations, I removed it from its glaucous ocean.
Academic text (2007) -
We watched with dying eyes as glaucous as the sea.
Academic text (2007) -
Everything faced the glaucous giant eye of the television set.
Fiction book (1994) -
The light, changing fast, has turned a gelatinous green, so that even the black of her father's gabardine has a glaucous case.
Fiction book (1990) -
It used to be transparent, like window glass with a view through it of different colors: glaucous green, bright white, a small wild strawberry red.
Fiction book (1991) -
The room is somewhat glaucous and golden, as if a woman were living there, a woman with green eyes and blond hair, light and long, a shimmering, shadowy gold, and with the scent of sandalwood.
Fiction book (1995) -
Many of the large stones had been toppled, the small glaucous ones uprooted and heaved in every direction by picnickers; by exhibitionizing young men of the Manning.
Academic text (1990) -
The plant's leaves are glaucous, giving it a unique frosted appearance.
-
The glaucous coating on the fruit makes it look like it's dusted with powder.
Synonyms
Having a dull blue-green or gray color
Antonyms
Compounds
- Specialized
A small coastal plant that lives several years with sticky stems and narrow pink or lavender flowers
How Bluish-Green
Surface Forms
Morphology
glaucous = glauc + ous
The adjective is formed with the suffix '-ous' attached to the combining form 'glauc-' (a Greek borrowing); 'glauc-' is not a recognizable standalone English base, so learners cannot reliably derive the meaning from known English components.
Etymology
Glaucous comes from an old Greek word glaukos, which meant 'blue-green' or 'gleaming'. So when leaves or fruit are called glaucous today, they have a pale bluish-gray, dusty or waxy coating — like the frosted look on some grapes or the silvery shine on leaves.