Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Made of or resembling flax.
- adj. Having the pale grayish-yellow color of flax fiber: flaxen braids.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Of flax; made of flax: as, flaxen thread.
- Resembling flax in color, as hair; fair and flowing like flax.
- Pertaining to flax.
- To beat or thrash.
Wiktionary
- adj. Made of or resembling flax fibers.
- adj. a pale yellow brown; the colour of dried flax stalks and of the fiber obtained therefrom.
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. Made of flax; resembling flax or its fibers; of the color of flax; of a light soft straw color; fair and flowing, like flax or tow
WordNet 3.0
- adj. of hair color; pale yellowish to yellowish brown
Examples
“My hair would have been called flaxen by a poet, and until recently had fallen almost to my waist.”
Changeling
“Her hair was a dark shade of the colour usually termed flaxen, whose clustering ringlets suited admirably with her fair complexion, and with the playful, yet simple, expression of her features.”
“Their hair in general is black, but in some it is brown, in some red, and in others flaxen, which is remarkable, because the hair of all other natives of Asia, Africa, and America, is black, without a single exception.”
“a green stuff, with a brown holland apron and bib over it, quite straight all the way down, for she had no particular waist, and her hair, which was of a funny kind of flaxen grey, she bundled up and tied round, without any cap or anything else on her head.”
“a funny kind of flaxen grey, she bundled up and tied round, without any cap or anything else on her head.”
“Heavens, before I was of the flaxen-haired Aesir, who dwelt in”
“And I have lain in the barley, sick with yearning for her, just to see her pass and glut my eyes with the swaying wonder of her and of her hair, black with the night, or brown or flaxen, or all golden-dusty with the sun.”
“When I think back at all, rather do I think far back to my childhood at the skirts of my milk - skinned, flaxen-haired, buxom English mother.”
“Instead it offers miles of flaxen marshes bent by the winds—what Mr. Jacobsen describes as "the flattest landscape imaginable, a prairie on the water.”
“I envied her brief episodeto the far shore, wanted her to linger, tobecome a woman made of ocean, sand, salt and air, eyes of ocean green washed pebbles, hair of flaxen seaweedsweeping behind her erasing footstepsso none could find her.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘flaxen’.
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Nice archaic words
oneiric, tisane, pecksniffian, eftsoons, forsooth, egad, ensorcell, zounds, fie, huzzah, consarn it, prithee and 2 more...
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[Open] Suffix “-en” Meaning “Made Of”
or Yet Another Thing I Learned from The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
These are adjectives formed (in Old or Middle English) by adding the suffix -en to a noun representing (in all...woolen, wooden, silken, oaten, oaken, leaden, hempen, golden, flaxen, earthen, brazen, birchen and 24 more...
yarb Citation on peruke. Sep 18, 2008