▪ I. hue, n.1
(hjuː)
Forms: 1 h{iacu}ew, h{iacu}w, 1–2 h{iacu}ow, héo, 1–3 hiu, heow, (2–3 hou), 3 heou, heouwe, heuwe, hiev, (howe, ewe, euhe), 3–6 hewe, 3–7 hew, (heu), 4 hu, 4 heuh, heuȝ, huee, hywe, 4–5 hwe, hye, 4–6 hiewe, (5 huwe, whew), 6–7 hiew, (7 hieu, heiw), 6– hue.
[OE. h{iacu}ew, h{iacu}w, dial. h{iacu}ow, h{iacu}u, héo (infl. h{iacu}ewes, etc.):—WGer. hiuwj- = Goth. hiwi form, appearance, show, Sw. h{yacu} skin, complexion (:—hiuj-):— OTeut. *hiwjo{supm}. Cf. Skr. chawi hide, skin, complexion, colour, beauty, splendour.]
† 1. a. Form, shape, figure; appearance, aspect; species. Obs.
| a 900 Cynewulf Crist 721 in Exeter Bk., He..þær mennisc hiw onfeng. 971 Blickl. Hom. 197 Heo [the church of St. Michael] is eac on onsyne utan yfeles heowes. c 1000 ælfric Gen. i. 12 æfter his hiwe [secundum speciem suam]. c 1000 Ags. Gosp. Matt. xvi. 3 Nu cunne ᵹe tocnawan heofones hiw. a 1100 Ags. Voc. in Wr.-Wülcker 317/37 Forma, hiw. a 1175 Cott. Hom. 223 He com þa a nedren hiwe. c 1200 Ormin 12605 Godess Gast Inn aness cullfress heowe. a 1300 Cursor M. 4225 For þi suettnes and þi fair heu. c 1386 Chaucer Pard. T. 93 (Harl.) Thus put I out my venym vnder hiewe Of holynes. 1398 Trevisa Barth. De P.R. viii. xv. (Tollem. MS.), A fayre persone, fayre yȝen, fayre face and semely hye. c 1470 Henry Wallace ii. 398 [He] Hynt out his suerd, that was of nobill hew. 1590 Greene Orl. Fur. Wks. (Rtldg.) 106/2 Thrice hath Cynthia chang'd her hue. 1653 H. More Conject. Cabbal. Wks. (1713) 187 In that squallid and horrid hew he sets out this Hyle or First Matter, in the First Day's Creation. |
† b. concr. An apparition, a phantasm. Obs.
| a 1000 Ags. Gloss. in Wr.-Wülcker 236/8 Fantasia,..fantasma, scinlac, uel hiw. c 1420 Lydg. Assembly Gods 2049 When I sy hit, hit was but a whew, A dreme, a fantasy, and a thing of nought. 1603 Philotus cxxii. E ij b, I conjure the..Be Sanctis of Heuin and hewis of Hell. |
2. External appearance of the face and skin, complexion. Also transf. (In late use passing into 3.) hide and (or) hue: see hide n.1 2 b.
| c 1205 Lay. 24644 Wimmen wunliche on heowen. c 1250 Gen. & Ex. 3051 Wimmen..Faiȝer on siȝte..And briȝte on hewe. ? a 1366 Chaucer Rom. Rose 1213 She was not broun ne dun of hewe. c 1440 Generydes 1677 How fayre of hewe and womanly she was. c 1560 A. Scott Poems (S.T.S.) vii. 33 Ȝe ladeis cleir of hew. 1600 J. Pory tr. Leo's Africa ii. 25 The women..contenting themselves only with their naturall hiew. 1777 Sheridan Sch. Scand. Portrait 104 The tender hue of female doubt. 1836 Hor. Smith Tin Trump. (1876) 78 Our mental hue depends as completely on the social atmosphere in which we move as our complexion upon the climate in which we live. |
3. a. Colour.
Down to the 16th c. app. exactly synonymous with ‘colour’; but it appears to have become archaic in prose use about 1600, for it is included by Bullokar, Cockeram, etc., in their collections of ‘Hard Words’, and explained as = ‘colour’. In modern use it is either a poetic and rhetorical synonym of ‘colour’, or a vaguer term, including quality, shade or tinge of colour, tint, and applicable to any mixture of colours as well as to a primary or simple colour.
| 971 Blickl. Hom. 73 Seo [smerenes] is brunes heowes & godes stences. c 1050 Byrhtferth's Handboc in Anglia VIII. 322 Hyt sceal beon hwites hiwes. a 1225 Ancr. R. 150 Grene ouer alle heowes froureð mest eien. c 1375 Sc. Leg. Saints, Bertholomeus 56 Sete with stanis of purpure hew. c 1450 Holland Howlat 431 The colour of asure, ane hevinliche hewe. 1576 Fleming Panopl. Epist. Ded. ¶iij, With leaves and blossoms of glorious hewe. 1616 Bullokar, Hew, colour. 1694 Addison Poems, Virgil, The flower it self is of a golden hue. 1791 Mrs. Radcliffe Rom. Forest ii, In the east, the hues became more vivid. 1808 Scott Marm. vi. xiv, On the Earl's cheek the flush of rage O'ercame the ashen hue of age. 1836 W. Irving Astoria I. 169 Wild flowers of every hue. 1844–57 G. Bird Urin. Deposits (ed. 5) 233 The urine is of a fine amber hue, often darker than in health. 1859 W. S. Coleman Woodlands (1866) 23 The autumnal hues of the Beech are rich and glowing in the extreme. 1880 Daily News 7 Dec. 5/2 The hue of health will instantly revisit his sunburnt cheek. |
b. Chromatics. Variety of any colour, caused by approach to or slight admixture of another; tint or quality of a particular colour.
| 1857 Willmott Pleas. Lit. xi. 43 A phrase or an epithet in a book is a particular hue or shade of a picture. 1861 Chem. News IV. 187 Crimson..and..scarlet. The first is a red with a violet hue, and the second is a red with an orange hue. 1874 R. Tyrwhitt Sketch. Club 32 Hue [means] variety of colour. 1891 Helen B. Harris Apol. Aristides ii. 19 The green of its garden with the contrasted hues of the almond and the cypress. 1898 Westm. Gaz. 19 May 3/2 Between tone and hue there is sometimes confusion; a colour has both tones and hues. There are, for example, a turquoise hue of blue and a cornflower hue of blue..the first having been influenced by the addition of green, and the second by that of white or black... There may be many hues of a colour and many tones of each hue. |
c. That attribute of a colour by which it is recognized as a red, a purple, a green, etc., and which approximately corresponds to its dominant wavelength (or to that of its complementary colour); it constitutes, along with saturation (‘tint’, purity, intensity) and lightness (‘shade’), one of the three attributes required for the complete specification of any colour.
In this sense hue is the quality in which different ‘hues’ (as distinct from ‘tints’ and ‘shades’: see shade n. 4) differ; cf. quot. 1835 below and quot. 1859 s.v. tint n.1 2 a.
| [1835 G. Field Chromatography iii. 28 By mixing his colours with white, the artist obtains..tints; by mixing colours with colours, he obtains compound colours, or hues; finally, by mixing colours or tints with black, he gets..shades.] 1855 J. C. Maxwell in Trans. R. Scottish Soc. Arts IV. 395 There will be two things on which the nature of each ray will depend:—(1.) its intensity or brightness; (2.) its hue, which may be estimated by its position in the spectrum, and measured by its wave length. Ibid. 396 Colours differ not only in intensity and hue, but also in tint; that is, they are more or less pure. 1872 ― in Not. Proc. R. Inst. Gt. Brit. VI. 263 Colour may vary in hue, tint, and shade... A difference in hue may be illustrated by the difference between adjoining colours in the spectrum. 1900 G. H. Hurst Colour i. 13 The hue of a colour is that constant which is commonly denominated by the term colour, as blue, or green, or red. 1936 A. B. Klein Colour Cinematogr. i. 89 There are about 130 steps of just distinguishable difference in hue in the spectrum. 1939 M. Luckiesh Colour 39 The names of colors are often taken from the hue and usually imply it. 1955 P. D. Trevor-Roper Ophthalm. x. 137 Mono⁓chromatic light may alter its apparent hue as it becomes more unsaturated, red turning to pink, orange to yellow. 1960 G. M. Wyburn Nervous Syst. vi. 83 Colour or hue, which is our interpretation of variations in light wave⁓length is comparable to the pitch of sound. 1966 R. R. Coupe Sci. of Printing Technol. ix. 209 To describe completely a colour, we must take into account three different properties, namely hue, saturation and lightness. |
▪ II. † hue, n.2
Also 4–5 hu, 4–6 hew, 4, 7 heu, 5 hewe, hui(e, 6–7 huy, (6 Sc. hoy).
[a. OF. hu, hui, huy, heu, outcry, noise, war-cry, hunting-cry, n. of action to huer to hoot, cry, shout, hue v.2]
Outcry, shouting, clamour, esp. that raised by a multitude in war or the chase. Obs. exc. in hue and cry, q.v.
| c 1330 R. Brunne Chron. Wace (Rolls) 6089 Þe Wa[l]ssche and Scottes wyþal þer here Comen wyþ gret noise & hew [v.r. hu]. Ibid. 11984 Þey..tok þer weye toward Moungu Wyþ mykel noyse & cry & heu [v.r. hu]. 13.. E.E. Allit. P. A. 872 A hue fro heuen I herde þoo. 1423 Rolls Parlt. IV. 198/2 Wyth outen hewe or cry. 1565–73 Cooper Thesaurus, Acclamatio,..an hue or crie. 1576 Turberv. Venerie 136 Why dost thou..me pursue with cry of hounds, with blast of horne, with hallow, and with hue? 1603 Drayton Bar. Wars ii. liii, Like as a Heard of over-heated Deere..With Hues and Hounds recou'red eu'ry where. 1779 Gentl. Mag. XLIX. 253 As soon as M. Lally appeared, a hue was set up by the whole assembly, hisses, pointing, threats and every abusive name. |
▪ III. hue, n.3 N.Z.
(ˈhuːeɪ)
[Maori.]
A local name for the bottle gourd, Lagenaria vulgaris.
| 1843 E. Dieffenbach Trav. N.Z. II. iv. 49 The calabashes (hue) were..the next addition to their stock of eatables. 1868 W. Colenso in Trans. N.Z. Inst. I. iii. Essay. 36 The Hue, or gourd, (a species of Cucurbitæ), gave useful Calabashes, and vessels of several kinds and sizes, from a gill to three gallons. 1905 W. B. Where White Man Treads 15 Besides being a succulent delicacy when young, the matured vegetable hue, with its strong, horny rind, could be put to the uses of many utensils, as drinking cups, bowls, etc., and, most important of all, water and oil flasks. 1921 H. Guthrie-Smith Tutira viii. 55 The land [was] usually too poor for the cultivation on a great scale of such exotics as..the hue (Lagenaria vulgaris). 1949 P. H. Buck Coming of Maori (1950) ii. i. 91 The gourd (hue) was grown principally to provide containers for water and for preserved birds. |
▪ IV. hue, v.1
(hjuː)
[OE. h{iacu}wian, f. h{iacu}w, hue n.1]
1. trans. To form, fashion, figure, give an external appearance to; esp. (in later use) to colour. † In early use sometimes, To fashion falsely, feign, pretend. Chiefly in pa. pple.: see hued ppl. a.
| c 1000 ælfric Hom. I. 484 Herodes hiwode hine sylfne unrotne. c 1050 Supp. ælfric's Voc. in Wr.-Wülcker 178/39 Colorare, hiwian. c 1050 Ags. Gloss. Ibid. 408/26 Fingo, ic hiwiᵹe. a 1300 Cursor M. 28013 Yee leuedis..studis hu your hare to heu, hu to dub and hu to paynt. 1830 Tennyson Poems 39 All that blue heaven which hues and paves The other. 1839 J. E. Reade Deluge etc. 4 We..watched The sunset hueing the rich clouds. |
b. fig. To tinge.
| 1576 Fleming Panopl. Epist. 315 My mynde being surprised with sorrow, and hewed with heavinesse. |
† 2. To depict, describe vividly. Obs.
| c 1450 Holland Howlat 424 Part of the principale..I sall haist me to hewe hartlie but hyre. |
† 3. intr. To take a colour; to become coloured.
| 1682 J. Collins Salt & Fishery 51 The Liquor begins to hew, and is ready to kern or granulate. |
▪ V. hue, v.2 Now local.
Also 4 huw, 6 hew(e.
[app. a. F. hue-r to shout as in war or the chase, to hoot: app. of onomatopœic origin. The Cornish use may be an independent onomatopœia.]
1. intr. To shout, make an outcry; spec. in hunting, and now in the Cornish sea fisheries. Cf. huer.
| a 1250 [see huing vbl. n.]. 13.. Guy Warw. (A.) 6728 Þe wisest hunt folweþ fast, Huweþ & gredeþ wiþ gret blast. 1799 Naval Chron. I. 475 By the 1st of James I. c. 23, fishermen are empowered to go on the grounds of others to hue. 1864 Mrs. Lloyd Ladies Polc. 39 Do 'ee ‘hue’ to the ladies for the life of 'ee. Look to that ground swell. |
2. trans. To assail, drive, or guide with shouts.
| 1590 Cokaine Treat. Hunting B ij b, Euery Huntsman..is to hew him or backe him into the Couert againe. Ibid., To hewe the Roe bucke in, both with voyce and horne. 1603–4 Act 1 James I, c. 23 §1 It shall..be lawfull..for euery such Watchmen, Balcors, Huors, Condors, Directors and Guidors..to enter..any Landes..and there to watch..and to Balke, Hue, Conde, Direct and Guide the Fisher⁓men which shall be vpon the said Sea and Sea Coasts. 1676 Hobbes Iliad (1677) 163 As when a lion, coming from the wood..Is hu'd by dogs and pesants in the night. Ibid. 259 Dogs and herds-men looking on And hueing him. |
▪ VI. hue
var. heo, hi pron. she, they.
▪ VII. hue
var. hoey, society of Chinese.
| 1882 H. De Windt Equator 29 Members of a ‘Hue’, or Chinese secret society. |