Dictionary

mellowy en · ADJ

Etymology

From Middle English melowy, equivalent to mellow + -y.

Meanings

1. Soft; unctuous; loamy.
   • The first a dry mellowy soil, made up of a due mixture of clay and sand, very deep, and passes under the name of daichy haughs. 1812, Great Britain. Board of Agriculture, Agricultural Surveys: Banff, page 68:
   • Thy plumpe and swelling wombe, whose mellowy gleabe doth beare The yellow ripened sheafe, that bendeth with the eare. 1612, Michael Drayton, Poly-Olbion, song 10 p. 159:
2. Mild; subdued; gentle; not at all harsh or sharp.
   • I have investigated with great care the alterations of the soft, free, mellowy character of the normal respiratory murmurs, in all the cases of auscultation I have met for some years, and I have learned to give to this class of signs more weight than is usually assigned to them. 1841, Jules Fournet, Clinical Researches on Auscultation of the Respiratory Organs and on the First Stage of Phthisis Pulmonalis, page 58:
   • The silver moon—the silver moon—how mellowy it gleams! 1829, T.C.O., “To S****”, in Ladies' Magazine and Literary Gazette, volume 2, page 35:
   • A little distance off was a grey and mossy cottage, the sight of which made Michael's heart leap, and called to his memory many reflections, pleasing, but mellowy sad. 1887, R. M. Tate ·, Michael Malcolm, Or, Annals of a Sea-port Town, page 186:
   • Get the fun of "playing" outdoors in the mellowy energising winter sunshine. 1928, Country Life - Volume 55, page 127:
   • The fish sauce shall have a mellowy taste and should not be too salty. 1968 August 5, “Philippine Trade Standared Specifications for Fish Sauce”, in Official Gazette, volume 64, number 32, page 8108:
   • mellowy light
   • Like a stream-wrestling lily of mellowy gold, What sweet parted lips, and what glozy blue eyes, Purple-steeped as the heartsease held up to the light! 1856 February 23, “Poetical Nuisances”, in The Saturday Review of Politics, Literature, Science and Art, page 328:
3. Tender; emotional.
   • Anita saw that look on him, that mellowy, kind of stupid look that some men get when they've been drinking. 2004, Charles Fleming, The Ivory Coast:
   • Not that he got all soft and mellowy around them, but he'd never met one he didn't like. 2016, Marilyn Pappano, A Summer to Remember:
4. (of plants) Mature and soft; ripe.
   • Round its sides, A range of Gardens, gay as those which crown'd Thy work Semiramis, luxuriant waved With Autumn's mellowy growth; 1769, John Ogilvie, Providence. Solitude. Paradise. An aeolian ode, page 29:
   • The first named never becomes a mellowy Pear, even grown on a south wall here ; 1886 January 9, W. Ingram, “Fruit Garden: Amateur Pear Growers”, in The Garden, volume 29, page 22:
   • Autumn's rich mellowy fruit bedecks the trees, Laid low, beneath a winter's stormy skies. 1839, Margaret Richardson, The Buds of Hope: A Collection of Miscellaneous Poems, page 48:

Forms