glaucous

English

WOTD – 16 February 2010

From Latin glaucus, from Ancient Greek γλαυκός (glaukós, “blue-green, blue-grey”). See Irish glas.

glaucous (comparative more glaucous, superlative most glaucous)

Of a pale green colour with a bluish-grey tinge, especially when covered with a powdery residue.
- 1955, I realised I was the only shopper in that rather eerie place where I moved about fishlike, in a glaucous aquarium. — Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita
- 1994, inside you could see the wires and cables that ran aft to the rudder and elevators and the cracked and curled and sunblacked leather of the seats and in their tarnished nickel bezels the glass of instrument dials glaucous and clouded from the pumicing of the desert sands. — Cormac McCarthy, The Crossing
(botany) Covered with a bloom or a pale powdery covering, regardless of colour.

of a pale green colour with a bluish-grey tinge

covered with a bloom or a pale powdery covering, regardless of colour