Dictionary

glaucous en · ADJ

Pronunciation

• /ˈɡlɑ.kəs/ (US)
• /ˈɡlɔː.kəs/ (UK)
• (Southern-England) audio
• /ˈɡlɔ.kəs/ (US)

Etymology

From Latin glaucus, from Ancient Greek γλαυκός (glaukós, “blue-green, blue-grey”), 1670s. See Irish glas.

Meanings

1. Of a pale grey or bluish-green, especially when covered with a powdery residue.
   • I realised I was the only shopper in that rather eerie place where I moved about fishlike, in a glaucous aquarium […] 1955, Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita:
   • Traveling at sea for the first time is a chance to realize that the ocean is not one ocean. The water changes. The Atlantic that seethes off the eastern U.S. is glaucous and lightless and looks mean. Around Jamaica, though, it’s more like a milky aquamarine, and translucent. 1997, David Foster Wallace, “A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again”, in A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again, Kindle edition, Little, Brown Book Group:
   • […] 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. 1994, Cormac McCarthy, The Crossing:
2. Covered with a bloom or a pale powdery covering, regardless of colour.

Forms

Deriveds

glaucous pimplet · glaucous-winged gull · glaucous gull · glaucous willow · glaucous honeysuckle · glaucous sedge · glaucousness · nonglaucous · glaucously

Relateds

subglaucous · glauconite · glaucoma · glaucescent

Translations (18)

ru серо-зелёный (of a pale green colour with a bluish-grey tinge) · ka მონაცრისფრო-მოცისფრო (of a pale green colour with a bluish-grey tinge) · fr pruiné (covered with a bloom or a pale powdery covering, regardless of colour) · bg сивозеленикав (of a pale green colour with a bluish-grey tinge) · pt glauco (of a pale green colour with a bluish-grey tinge) · grc γλαυκός (of a pale green colour with a bluish-grey tinge) · es glauco (of a pale green colour with a bluish-grey tinge) · ro glauc (of a pale green colour with a bluish-grey tinge) · cy llwydwyrdd (of a pale green colour with a bluish-grey tinge) · bg мъхест (covered with a bloom or a pale powdery covering, regardless of colour) · it glauco (of a pale green colour with a bluish-grey tinge) · ru сизый (of a pale green colour with a bluish-grey tinge) · cy llwydlas (of a pale green colour with a bluish-grey tinge) · la glaucus (of a pale green colour with a bluish-grey tinge) · el γλαυκός (of a pale green colour with a bluish-grey tinge) · io glauka (of a pale green colour with a bluish-grey tinge) · ca glauc (of a pale green colour with a bluish-grey tinge) · id biru telur itik (of a pale green colour with a bluish-grey tinge)