cinereous

Meanings

1. 1
   adj

   ash-gray or gray tinged with brown, especially in descriptions of an animal's plumage, fur, or other coloring

   The moth's cinereous wings blended with the ash-gray bark.

Borrowed from Latin cinereus ("ashen, ash-colored"), from cinis, genitive cineris ("ashes"). Naturalists adopted the word as a precise color term for the subdued ash-gray shades of feathers, fur, and insect bodies.

Topics