glaucous, a. Chiefly Nat. Hist.
(ˈglɔːkəs)
[f. L. glauc-us (a. Gr. γλαυκός) bluish-green or grey + -ous.]
Of a dull or pale green colour passing into greyish blue; spec. in Bot. covered with ‘bloom’.
| 1671 Ray in Rem. (1760) 182 The Leaves are small, of a Glaucous Colour. 1750 G. Hughes Barbadoes 118 A reddish stalk, generally clouded over with a glaucous mealiness. 1816 Southey Poets's Pilgr. iii. 26 The vigorous olive..Tower'd high, and spread its glaucous foliage wide. 1820 Shelley Prom. Unbd. ii. i. 44 Under the glaucous caverns of old ocean. 1862 Symonds in Biog. (1895) I. 202 The eyes are small, and very glaucous grey. 1863 Berkeley Brit. Mosses iii. 17 The leaves vary from bright or glaucous green to..brown, red or purple. 1864 Thoreau Maine W. iii. 270 The dark mountains..were seen through a glaucous mist. 1874 Coues Birds N.W. 420 Eggs of both these birds sometimes show a peculiar glaucous cast, something like the ‘bloom’ on a grape. 1880 Gray Struct. Bot. 413/2 Glaucous, covered or whitened with a bloom, like that on a Cabbage leaf. |
b. glaucous gull: a name for Larus glaucus, from the colour of its plumage.
| 1828 Stark Elem. Nat. Hist. I. 310 Glaucous Gull. The Burgomaster of the Dutch. Back, shoulders, and wing-coverts, bluish cinereous. 1878 A. H. Markham Gt. Frozen Sea iv. 58 The glaucous gull and the pretty kittiwake soared above our heads. |