Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The state of being pearly.

Etymologies

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Examples

  • Do let me teach you to understand the heavenly pearliness of these lines.

    The Woman in White 2003

  • No fond mother crooning to her first-born ever looked on budding teeth more delightful in modelling and pearliness.

    Tropic Days 2003

  • Their pearliness contrasted with the inky roundness of their eye, which looked black but in fact was the deepest of reds, blood-rich.

    Courting Trouble Scottoline, Lisa 1993

  • Caris, kneeling beside him, looked from the corpse's eyes, staring blindly now at the faint pearliness of false dawn visible between the crowding black angles of the roofs, to the thin, aquiline features of his grandfather.

    The Silent Tower Hambly, Barbara 1986

  • Take up no pearly drop from the lake, mother of pearliness, lest falling it sound too loudly.

    The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, No. 62, December, 1862 Various

  • I can give no possible idea in writing of the tone of colour in this picture, except by comparing it to the semi-transparency of Mosaic, such are the clearness of the tints and pearliness of the sky and distance.

    Recollections of the late William Beckford of Fonthill, Wilts and Lansdown, Bath Henry Venn Lansdown

  • The day shone with the clear pearliness of early June: high in air the big cumulus clouds rode golden-white, trailing their shadows over the dappled land beneath; the branches of hawthorn gleamed silvery amidst the pearly blossom; a wine-pale sunlight washed with iridescence sky and earth.

    Secret Bread F. Tennyson Jesse

  • This gives a good imitation of phosphorescence, as well as a slight pearliness, whilst the tinsel, seen through the paint and the curious milkiness of the glass, gives good "fire."

    The Chemistry, Properties and Tests of Precious Stones John Mastin

  • In the purple gloom that followed the white cloisters of the courtyard glowed with a faintly luminous pearliness.

    The Sea-Hawk Rafael Sabatini 1912

  • Patiently, piece by piece, he must go over all this, watching for that faint blue haze, that deepening of the atmosphere, that almost imagined pearliness against the distant hills which meant new fire.

    The Rules of the Game Stewart Edward White 1909

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