Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Dark brownish-gray in color.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Brown; brown tinged with gray; of a dark, swarthy color.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective Brown or grayish black; darkish.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective of a dark brownish-gray color; dark or dusky

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective of something having a dusky brownish grey color

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[From Latin fuscus.]

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word fuscous.

Examples

  • “Only the females have been examined” but I predict the males will show themselves to be fuscous.

    Swallowtail | clusterflock 2009

  • Four endemic species of shrew are found only in these forests; the mountain shrew (Sylvisorex oriundus, VU), African foggy shrew (Crocidura caliginea, CR), Congo shrew (C. congobelgica, VU), and the fuscous shrew (C. polia, CR).

    Northeastern Congolian lowland forests 2007

  • Burke notes qualities such as unfinishedness or ruination, magnitude, difficulty or impossibility, and even "sad and fuscous colours" as symptomatic of the Sublime.

    Kenneth Hite's Journal princeofcairo 2007

  • Head densely clothed with long whitish hairs; thorax and abdomen with black hairs; wings hyaline, the nervures and nervules brown, with a few black scales: base of the anterior and abdominal fold of the posterior more or less covered with black hairs; antennae and legs fuscous brown.

    Journals of expeditions of discovery into Central Australia, and overland from Adelaide to King George's Sound, in the years 1840-1 2004

  • The sun, not yet obscured, was picking out its fuscous shape with dazzling light, and marking its front with grey stripes running right down to the horizon.

    Boyhood 2003

  • Halo Blight (Pseudomonas phaseoli-cola): This bacterial disease prefers cooler temperatures than common and fuscous blights.

    Chapter 10 1981

  • The flagellum fulvous beneath, the mandibles ferruginous at their apex; the tarsi ferruginous, wings hyaline, nervures fuscous, stigma testaceous.

    Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnean Society - Vol. 3 Zoology Various

  • Thorax thinly covered with long yellow pubescence, which is most dense at the sides of the metathorax; the tibiæ, tarsi, and posterior femora ferruginous; the claw-joint of the tarsi black; the tibiæ and tarsi with black spines; the wings fulvo-hyaline, their apex with a narrow fuscous border, the nervures ferruginous.

    Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnean Society - Vol. 3 Zoology Various

  • Yellow; the antennæ fuscous above, also a fuscous cloud at the apex of the anterior wings, the wings hyaline with the nervures black; a spot on the scape within, and three longitudinal stripes on the mesothorax, black; the latter slightly punctured anteriorly; the metathorax smooth and shining, with three oblique carinæ on each side, and a small subovate enclosed space in the middle of the disk.

    Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnean Society - Vol. 3 Zoology Various

  • Ferruginous; the posterior tarsi and the fourth and following segments of the abdomen black; the head is reddish yellow, the eyes brown; the scape and two or three of the basal joints of the flagellum ferruginous, the rest fuscous; the basal half of the wings flavo-hyaline, the apical half fuscous; the stigma yellow, with a subhyaline macula beneath, and two other similar irregular-shaped spots.

    Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnean Society - Vol. 3 Zoology Various

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.

  • cf subfusc

    June 22, 2008

  • "The forewings are ochreous-white, strongly suffused with deep gray. The inner angle, veins, a longitudinal dash in the cell and a series of spots around the termen are all blackish fuscous. The hindwings are pale smoky gray."

    April 17, 2017