Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Consisting of or resembling ashes.
  • adjective Of a gray color tinged with black.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Like ashes; having the color of the ashes of wood; dark opaque gray; ash-gray.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective Like ashes; ash-colored; grayish.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun An ash-gray colour.
  • adjective Of an ash-gray colour.
  • adjective Like ashes.
  • adjective Containing ashes.

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[From Latin cinereus, from cinis, ciner-, ashes.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Latin cinereus, from the stem ciner- meaning ashes.

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Examples

  • I try to think of all the Audubon birds I know and list them in my head: Painted bunting, swallow-tailed hawk, great cinereous owl, whip-poor-will, the hemlock warbler...

    The Memory Palace Mira Bartók 2011

  • I try to think of all the Audubon birds I know and list them in my head: Painted bunting, swallow-tailed hawk, great cinereous owl, whip-poor-will, the hemlock warbler...

    The Memory Palace Mira Bartók 2011

  • That's because Anakin is a rare cinereous vulture from Mongolia, but somehow he's ended up in Thailand.

    CNN Transcript May 11, 2007 2007

  • To make matters worse, there's an alternate form cinereal defined as 'cinereous.'

    languagehat.com: ASHES TO ASHES. 2004

  • I might add that the OED does have cinereous, defined as 'Of an ashy hue, ash-coloured, ashen-gray'—but what color are these ashes?

    languagehat.com: ASHES TO ASHES. 2004

  • What caught my attention, though, was the entry a few lines above: cinereous 'gray tinged or shaded with black.'

    languagehat.com: ASHES TO ASHES. 2004

  • And to make matters worse, Aegypius monachus is known in English as both cinereous vulture and cinerous vulture.

    languagehat.com: ASHES TO ASHES. 2004

  • Blood splashed cinereous fur, and not all of it was theirs, for their teeth were like razors, and he could not keep them all from him.

    Conan The Magnificent Jordan, Robert 1986

  • Blood splashed cinereous fur, and not all of it was theirs, for their teeth were like razors, and he could not keep them all from him.

    Conan The Magnificent Jordan, Robert 1984

  • The soil, now quite dry at the surface, is of a cinereous grey; about a foot below it is brown, which passes, as you proceed, into deeper yellow; about four feet deep, it passes into sand.

    Journals of Travels in Assam, Burma, Bhootan, Afghanistan and the Neighbouring Countries William Griffith

Comments

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  • resembling ashes, ash-colored

    February 13, 2007

  • The zombies, disfigured and carious,

    (What flesh still attaches - cinereous)

    Are meant to apall

    But I find withal

    Their affect is downright hilarious.

    April 9, 2016