Dictionary

sallow en · ADJ · etymology 1

Pronunciation

• /ˈsæloʊ/ (US)
• (US) audio
• /ˈsæləʊ/ (Received-Pronunciation)
• (Southern-England) audio
• /ˈsalo/ (Scotland)
• /ˈsæləʉ/ (Australia)

Etymology

From Middle English salowe, from Old English salu, from Proto-West Germanic *salu, from Proto-Germanic *salwaz, from Proto-Indo-European *selH-. See also Dutch zaluw, dialectal German sal; also Irish salach (“dirty”), Welsh halog, Latin salīva, Russian соло́вый (solóvyj, “cream-colored”), and - through Frankish - French sale.

Meanings

1. (of light skin, of skin, qualifier:most regions) Yellowish. ▸ Of a sickly pale colour.
   • Then his sallow face brightened, for the hall had been carefully furnished, and was very clean. ¶ There was a neat hat-and-umbrella stand, and the stranger's weary feet fell soft on a good, serviceable dark-red drugget, which matched in colour the flock-paper on the walls. 1913, Mrs. [Marie] Belloc Lowndes, chapter II, in The Lodger, London: Methuen, →OCLC; republished in Novels of Mystery: The Lodger; The Story of Ivy; What Really Happened, New York, N.Y.: Longmans, Green and Co., […], [1933], →OCLC, page 0091:
   • She had sallow skin and myopic eyes, and none of the men had ever slept with her because none of the men had ever wanted to […] 1961 November 10, Joseph Heller, “The Eternal City”, in Catch-22 […], New York, N.Y.: Simon and Schuster, →OCLC, page 433:
   • For more than a century after the scandal of 1865, artists and historians wrestled with Olympia’s sallow skin, the bracelet on her right forearm, the orchid in her upswept red hair. 2023 September 9, Jason Farago, “The 19th Century’s Most Scandalous Painting Comes to New York”, in The New York Times:
   • Once a handsome face, with bright color, it was now sallow and deep-lined […] 1876, George Eliot [pseudonym; Mary Ann Evans], chapter LXII, in Daniel Deronda, volume IV, Edinburgh; London: William Blackwood and Sons, →OCLC, book VIII (Fruit and Seed), page 226:
   • […] there was something owl-like about the eyes, round which there was a sallow, hollow depression. 1937, Virginia Woolf, chapter 1880, in The Years, New York: Harcourt, Brace, page 64:
   • Jesu Maria, what a deal of brine Hath wash’d thy sallow cheeks for Rosaline! c. 1591–1595 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Romeo and Ivliet”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene iii]:
   • […] were it not that his Complexion is sallow, and that he is something short of a Leg, and Blind of one Eye, he would positively be the most lovely of all the human Species. 1770, Henry Brooke, The Fool of Quality, volume 5, Dublin, page 162:
2. (Ireland, of skin) Yellowish. ▸ Of a tan colour, associated with people from southern Europe or East Asia.
   • She had such lovely sallow skin, the handsome high cheekbones of the north with the brown conker-colour eyes and the dark silken hair. 2012 June 13, Billy Keane, “I feel so much for Mickey. Maybe there is peace for him in sport”, in Irish Independent:
   • A yellow undertone is often found on people with sallow skin – e.g. Asian. 17 January 2012, Aisling, "Am I pink or yellow? How to choose the right foundation tone. And what is the deal with Mac foundations?" beaut.ie
   • The girls are mostly Slavic-pretty, long-limbed with high cheekbones, sallow skin and green eyes. They are the closest thing to supermodels that Mulhuddart has ever seen. 2007 December 23, David McWilliams, We must begin the culture debate:
3. (of a person) Having skin (especially on the face) of a sickly pale colour.
   • She put her hand on the arm of her careworn, sallow father, and frothing her light draperies, proceeded over the eternal red carpet. 1920, D. H. Lawrence, chapter 1, in Women in Love, New York: Barnes & Noble Classics, published 1996, page 14:
   • Time is jealous of you, and wars against your lilies and your roses. You will become sallow, and hollow-cheeked, and dull-eyed. 1891, Oscar Wilde, “chapter 2”, in The Picture of Dorian Gray, London; New York, N.Y.: Ward Lock & Co., →OCLC:
   • In a matter of hours she was looking gaunt, and sallow: her face had a kind of negative color. 1982, Saul Bellow, chapter 2, in The Dean’s December, New York: Pocket Books, published 1983, page 20:
4. (of objects or dim light) Having a similar pale, yellowish colour.
   • Now a sallow night-light glowed from the table and heaped large shadows on the beds and up the walls. 2011, Alan Hollinghurst, The Stranger’s Child, New York: Knopf, Part 2, Chapter 8, p. 169:
   • In a restaurant window little meringue cases, not quite sallow and not quite white. 1992, Edna O’Brien, Time and Tide, New York: Farrar Straus Giroux, Part 4, Chapter 44, p. 319:
   • On the opposite bank of the Allier the land kept mounting for miles to the horizon: a tanned and sallow autumn landscape […] 1879, Robert Louis Stevenson, “Velay”, in Travels with a Donkey in the Cévennes, Boston: Roberts Brothers, page 48:
   • The terrible descriptions were so real and vivid, that the sallow pages seemed to turn red with gore […] 1838, Boz [pseudonym; Charles Dickens], Oliver Twist; […], volume (please specify |volume=I, II, or III), London: Richard Bentley, […], →OCLC:
   • Scenes like this — the sallow evening light, the old Indian cropping grass, the creak of the cartwheels, the streaming egrets — were more native to him than England. 1934 October, George Orwell [pseudonym; Eric Arthur Blair], “Chapter 5”, in Burmese Days, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers, Publishers, →OCLC:
5. Foul; murky; sickly.
   • The burden of a hollow and sallow feeling that was suffocating my soul as a learner had given way at this time to a joyous feeling of anticipation; 2013, Dr. John H. LaManque, A Bricklayer's Story, page 130:
   • Mr. President, the sallow air of our cities, the blackened sands of our seashores, our lakes and harbors reeking of sewage and depleted of oxygen are but a part of the sad legacy of the idea that nature can be treated as a servant, blindly obedient to every want, whim or pleasure of man. 1972, United States. Congress. House. Committee on Merchant Marine and Fisheries. Subcommittee on Fisheries and Wildlife Conservation, Predatory Mammals and Endangered Species, page 559:
   • The boat's deck was covered in moss, and its warm, sallow water was filled with lichens that gave off an eerie green glow. 2011, Jacob Murphy, Guardians, page 44:
   • My mouth went dry and a sallow feeling descended upon me. 2012, Dr. James Kennedy, The Baywood Tales, page 17:
   • This ugliness, though, filled the air now. With something rank and squalid and seemingly spent with the character of death. No, it wasn't that I was scared, being all alone now out on my property. In my house. It was this surrounding sallow atmosphere now which depressed me. This deep sense of some deep basic wrong occupying my surrounding world. 2016, Paul Quintanilla, Master Tom:

Forms

Deriveds

sallowfaced · sallowness · sallowly · sallowish · sallowy · sallow kitten · sallow sedge

Translations (33)

fr jaunâtre (yellowish) · hu fakó (yellowish) · bg жълтеникав (yellowish) · pdt blauss (yellowish) · el χλωμός (yellowish) · el ωχρός (yellowish) · fr cireux (yellowish) · gd odhar (yellowish) · hu színtelen (yellowish) · bg зацапан (dirty) · pl ziemisty (yellowish) · grc ὠχρός (yellowish) · hu sápadt (yellowish) · fi harmaankeltainen (yellowish) · mk жолте́никав (yellowish) · fa زرد (yellowish) · ota صاری (yellowish) · xal шар даг (yellowish) · de teigig (yellowish) · pl brudny (dirty) · ru земли́стый (yellowish) · fi kellertävä (yellowish) · hu sárgásfakó (yellowish) · cs zažloutlý (yellowish) · de blassgelblich (yellowish) · la lūteus (yellowish) · dsb płowy (yellowish) · hu pergamenszínű (yellowish) · hu sárgás (yellowish) · da gusten (yellowish) · de blässlich (yellowish) · la lūridus (yellowish) · sh žućkast (yellowish)

sallow en · VERB · etymology 1

Pronunciation

• /ˈsæloʊ/ (US)
• (US) audio
• /ˈsæləʊ/ (Received-Pronunciation)
• (Southern-England) audio
• /ˈsalo/ (Scotland)
• /ˈsæləʉ/ (Australia)

Etymology

From Middle English salowe, from Old English salu, from Proto-West Germanic *salu, from Proto-Germanic *salwaz, from Proto-Indo-European *selH-. See also Dutch zaluw, dialectal German sal; also Irish salach (“dirty”), Welsh halog, Latin salīva, Russian соло́вый (solóvyj, “cream-colored”), and - through Frankish - French sale.

Meanings

1. (intransitive) To become sallow.
   • I might have stemmed them in a narrow vase And watched each petal sallowing . . . 1918, Lola Ridge, “The Garden”, in The Ghetto and Other Poems, New York: Huebsch, page 93:
   • The tan of his sunburnt face and hands contrasted sadly with the sallowing skin of the girl-wife, who, despite his care, was sinking under her task of son-bearing. 1912, Flora Annie Steel, King-Errant, New York: Frederick A. Stokes, Book 2, Chapter 6, p. 212:
   • My maiden reviews, once the verbal equivalent of murder, are now a brief, compact pile, almost as old as I. They fall apart sallowing, their stiff pages chip like dry leaves flying the tree that fed them. 1977, Robert Lowell, “Death of a Critic”, in Day by Day, New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, page 48:
   • His complexion had darkened, sallowed; his black moustache had lost boldness, become sardonic; there were lines which she did not know about his face. 1920, John Galsworthy, “‘Here We are Again!’”, in In Chancery (The Forsyte Saga; 2), London: William Heinemann, →OCLC, part II, page 225:
2. (transitive) To cause (someone or something) to become sallow.
   • Mary Gowd, with her frumpy English hat and her dreadful English fringe, and her brick-red English cheeks, which not even the enervating Italian sun, the years of bad Italian food or the damp and dim little Roman room had been able to sallow. 1918, Edna Ferber, chapter 9, in Cheerful — By Request, Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Page, page 252:
   • But would a pretender carry his or her cunning to the extreme of fortifying the manuscript in every possible way against the sallowing touch of time[…]? 1889, George Washington Cable, “How I Got them”, in Strange True Stories of Louisiana, New York: Scribner, page 10:
   • All she knew was that she had been stiffened and thickened by the same years that had given the other woman added grace and suppleness, that her skin had been dried and sallowed by the same lights and weathers that had added luster to the radiant beauty of the other […] 1940, Thomas Wolfe, You Can’t Go Home Again, Garden City, NY: Sun Dial, published 1942, Book 2, Chapter 11, pp. 169-170:
   • 1835, Fanny Kemble (as Frances Anne Butler), Journal, London: John Murray, Volume 1, entry for 15 September, 1832, p. 105, footnote, The climate of this country is the scape-goat upon which all ill looks and ill health of the ladies is laid; but while they are brought up as effeminately as they are, take as little exercise, live in rooms like ovens during the winter, and marry as early as they do, it will appear evident that many causes combine with an extremely variable climate, to sallow their complexions, and destroy their constitutions.

Forms

sallow en · NOUN · etymology 2

Pronunciation

• /ˈsæloʊ/ (US)
• (US) audio
• /ˈsæləʊ/ (Received-Pronunciation)
• (Southern-England) audio
• /ˈsalo/ (Scotland)
• /ˈsæləʉ/ (Australia)

Etymology

From Middle English salow, salwe, from Old English sealh, from Proto-West Germanic *salh, from Proto-Germanic *salhaz, masculine variant of *salhō, *salhijǭ, from Proto-Indo-European *sh₂lk-, *sh₂lik-. See also Low German Sal, Saal; Swedish sälg; also Welsh helyg, Latin salix (and also a doublet of the thence derived English borrowing salix) probably originally a borrowing from some other language.

Meanings

1. A European willow, Salix caprea, that has broad leaves, large catkins and tough wood.
   • c. 1553, Humphrey Llwyd (translator), The Treasury of Healthe, London: William Coplande, Remedies, Chapter 44, I[f] a man eate the flowers of a sallow or wyllowe tree, or of a Poplet tree, they wyl make cold al the heate of carnall lust in hym.
   • And fast beside a little brooke did pas Of muddie water, that like puddle stanke, By which few crooked sallowes grew in ranke: 1596, Edmund Spenser, “Book IV, Canto V”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, page 75:
   • Now, everything irritated him: the two sallows, one all gold and perfume and murmur, one silver-green and bristly, reminded him, that here he had taught her about pollination. 1914, D. H. Lawrence, “The Shades of Spring”, in The Prussian Officer and Other Stories, London: Duckworth, page 158:
   • Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn / Among the river sallows, borne aloft / Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies; [...] 1819 September 19, John Keats, “To Autumn”, in Lamia, Isabella, the Eve of St. Agnes, and Other Poems, London: […] [Thomas Davison] for Taylor and Hessey, […], published 1820, →OCLC, stanza 3, page 139:
   • […] it came into my Mind, That the Twigs of that Tree from whence I cut my Stakes that grew, might possibly be as tough as the Sallows, and Willows, and Osiers in England […] 1719 May 6 (Gregorian calendar), [Daniel Defoe], The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, […], London: […] W[illiam] Taylor […], →OCLC, pages 125-126:
2. A willow twig or branch.
   • Who-so that buildeth his hous al of salwes, And priketh his blinde hors over the falwes, And suffreth his wyf to go seken halwes, Is worthy to been hanged on the galwes! 1387–1400, Geoffrey Chaucer, “(please specify the story via the 'title' parameter)”, in The Canterbury Tales, [Westminster: William Caxton, published 1478], →OCLC; republished in [William Thynne], editor, The Workes of Geffray Chaucer Newlye Printed, […], [London]: […] [Richard Grafton for] Iohn Reynes […], 1542, →OCLC, lines 655-658:
   • 1767, Francis Fawkes (translator), The Idylliums of Theocritus, London, for the author, Idyllium 16, p. 156, For lo! their spears the Syracusians wield, And bend the pliant sallow to a shield:
   • He stuck a number of sallows in a circle, at equal distances, in the grass; the circle was the size which he wished the basket to be. He then began to weave other sallows between these, in a manner which Frank easily learned to imitate […] 1822, Maria Edgeworth, Frank: A Sequel to Frank in Early Lessons, volume I, Cambridge, page 111:
   • 1564, William Bullein, A Dialogue Bothe Pleasaunte and Pietifull Wherein Is a Goodly Regimente against the Feuer Pestilence with a Consolacion and Comfort against Death, London: John Kingston, [p. 22b], […] set Sallowes about the bedde, besprinkled with vineger and rose water.
   • The sallow knows the basketmaker’s thumb; The oar, the guide’s. 1867, Ralph Waldo Emerson, “The Adirondacs”, in May-Day, and Other Pieces, Boston: Ticknor & Fields, page 49:

Forms

Deriveds

sally · grey sallow · sallow flute

Synonyms

goat willow (Salix caprea)

Translations (30)

fr saule marsault (Salix caprea) · da selje-pil (Salix caprea) · pl wierzba iwa (Salix caprea) · br haleg-gavr (Salix caprea) · tr keçi söğüdü (Salix caprea) · alt суу-тал (Salix caprea) · hu kecskefűz (Salix caprea) · sh vrba iva (Salix caprea) · es sauce cabruno (Salix caprea) · is selja (Salix caprea) · izh raita (Salix caprea) · fi raita (Salix caprea) · cy helyg deilgrwn (Salix caprea) · nl boswilg (Salix caprea) · es salce cabruno (Salix caprea) · ko 호랑버들 (Salix caprea) · mk и́ва (Salix caprea) · ga sailchearnach (Salix caprea) · cy helyg crynddail (Salix caprea) · it salicone (Salix caprea) · nl waterwilg (Salix caprea) · ru и́ва козья (Salix caprea) · es zargatillo (Salix caprea) · gl salgueiro cabuxo (Salix caprea) · cs vrba jíva (Salix caprea) · el ιτιά (Salix caprea) · it salice delle capre (Salix caprea) · sv sälg (Salix caprea) · de Salweide (Salix caprea) · bg ива (Salix caprea)