Dictionary

greenery-yallery en · ADJ

Etymology

From green + -ery + yaller (pronunciation spelling of yellow) + -y.

Meanings

1. Pertaining to the colors green and yellow as used in the style of late-nineteenth-century Aestheticism; hence, typical of Aestheticism; affected.
   • A greenery-yallery, Grosvenor Gallery, / Foot-in-the-grave young man. 1881, WS Gilbert, Patience:
   • [T]he Abu Dhabi TV show Sha’ir al-Maliyun, ‘Millionaire Poet’ […] is more than some greenery-yallery eisteddfod: in a land where rulers attack their enemies with odes, poetry is still portentous and powerful. 2019, Tim Mackintosh-Smith, Arabs, Yale University Press, page 106:
   • Nothing greenery-yallery about her. So gay, so correct, so unaffected. 1945, Evelyn Waugh, Brideshead Revisited:

Forms