Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Consisting of or resembling ashes.
- adj. Of a gray color tinged with black.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Like ashes; having the color of the ashes of wood; dark opaque gray; ash-gray.
Wiktionary
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. Like ashes; ash-colored; grayish.
Etymologies
- Latin cinereus, from the stem ciner- meaning ashes. (Wiktionary)
- From Latin cinereus, from cinis, ciner-, ashes. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“I try to think of all the Audubon birds I know and list them in my head: Painted bunting, swallow-tailed hawk, great cinereous owl, whip-poor-will, the hemlock warbler...”
“That's because Anakin is a rare cinereous vulture from Mongolia, but somehow he's ended up in Thailand.”
“To make matters worse, there's an alternate form cinereal defined as 'cinereous.”
“I might add that the OED does have cinereous, defined as 'Of an ashy hue, ash-coloured, ashen-gray'—but what color are these ashes?”
“What caught my attention, though, was the entry a few lines above: cinereous 'gray tinged or shaded with black.”
“And to make matters worse, Aegypius monachus is known in English as both cinereous vulture and cinerous vulture.”
“Blood splashed cinereous fur, and not all of it was theirs, for their teeth were like razors, and he could not keep them all from him.”
“The soil, now quite dry at the surface, is of a cinereous grey; about a foot below it is brown, which passes, as you proceed, into deeper yellow; about four feet deep, it passes into sand.”
Journals of Travels in Assam, Burma, Bhootan, Afghanistan and the Neighbouring Countries
“Antennæ and legs black; thorax slightly covered with cinereous tomentum; stripes, pectus, and underside of the abdomen hoary; tibiæ red, with black tips; wings brownish grey; radial areolet with a slate-coloured stripe.”
Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnean Society - Vol. 3 Zoology
“Abdomen thinly covered with a fine cinereous pile; the first node of the petiole somewhat oblong-ovate, the second subglobose, the petiole of the first node short.”
Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnean Society - Vol. 3 Zoology
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘cinereous’.
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New Words
idiopathic, quidditas, cloacal, peregrination, cyclamen, expatiate, pedantic, salonniere, manque, pelagic, exogenous, pellucid and 83 more...
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mycological hues
rubescent, lutescent, cinereous, avellaneous, fuscous, fulvous, sordid, lurid, livid, ochre, ochraceous, vinaceous and 6 more...
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Adjectival Arcana
A roster of adjectives that infrequently surface in typical conversation and writing. Many are dredged from scientific or other technical jargon or sieved from examples of disused archaic forms.
unitegmic, acaulescent, reticuloendothelial, ingressive, uniate, acanthopterygian, ossific, epiphysial, perivisceral, acœlomatous, cestoid, acælomate and 7756 more...
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Bird Wirds: Adjectives
Adjectives used in actual (non-taxonomic) bird names, past and present.
roseate, glossy, whooping, neotropic, pelagic, ferruginous, crested, whiskered, marbled, tufted, horned, eared and 818 more...
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Color adjectives
A complement to Chromonyms and Chromonyms 2, which are restricted to nouns that have appeared in at least one dictionary. If a word can be either a noun or an adjective, I list it as a noun. This l...
hyacinthine, griseous, glaucous, verdant, virescent, amaranthine, miniaceous, rubiginous, ferruginous, ruddy, caesious, cyanotic and 214 more...
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wordrainbow
A big list of color names for use on wordrainbow.com
emerald, cherry, coffee, cream, almond, gold, kiwi, green, grass green, aquamarine, beet red, sepia and 714 more...
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Colors
cerise, carnelian, florid, claret, watchet, rosaceous, coquelicot, vermilion, celadon, nacreous, lapis, viridescent and 132 more...
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Colors
cochineal, titian, citron, watteau brown, cerise, fuchsia, alizarin, sorrel, dun, umber, sienna, buff and 74 more...
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Colors Categorized: Gray/Silver
Exactly what it says on the tin
gray, silver, sterling, platinum, ash, steel, cinereous, argent, charcoal, isabelline, plumbeous, hoary and 9 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for cinereous.
reesetee resembling ashes, ash-colored Feb 12, 2007