Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- adjective Gray or white with or as if with age.
- adjective Covered with grayish hair or pubescence.
- adjective So old as to inspire veneration; ancient.
from The Century Dictionary.
- White or whitish.
- White or gray with age: as, hoary hairs.
- Figuratively, remote in time past: as, hoary antiquity.
- 4. Musty; moldy: as, hoary bread.
- In botany and entomology, covered with short, dense, grayish-white hairs; canescent.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- adjective White or whitish.
- adjective White or gray with age; hoar.
- adjective remote in time past.
- adjective obsolete Moldy; mossy; musty.
- adjective (Zoöl.) Of a pale silvery gray.
- adjective (Bot.) Covered with short, dense, grayish white hairs; canescent.
- adjective (Zoöl.) an American bat (
Atalapha cinerea ), having the hair yellowish, or brown, tipped with white.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- adjective
white orgray withage - adjective zoology of a pale silvery gray.
- adjective botany covered with short, dense, grayish white
hairs ;canescent - adjective obsolete remote in time past
- adjective obsolete
moldy ;mossy ;musty - adjective
old , orold-fashioned
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- adjective ancient
- adjective covered with fine whitish hairs or down
- adjective showing characteristics of age, especially having grey or white hair
Etymologies
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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If the inheritors of the future someday find quaint the idea that feminism once advanced the goals for women of reproductive rights, health care access, and cultural and legal equality of opportunity, and the F-word's future definition instead represents aspirational female success within hoary notions of gendered expectations and opportunities ... well, that would be unfortunate.
AJ Rossmiller: Brilliant New Book About Gender and 2008 Election AJ Rossmiller 2010
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If the inheritors of the future someday find quaint the idea that feminism once advanced the goals for women of reproductive rights, health care access, and cultural and legal equality of opportunity, and the F-word's future definition instead represents aspirational female success within hoary notions of gendered expectations and opportunities ... well, that would be unfortunate.
AJ Rossmiller: Brilliant New Book About Gender and 2008 Election AJ Rossmiller 2010
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Since 9/11, Pipes has become notorious for trafficking in hoary old Orientalist stereotypes in order to stoke Americans’ prejudice against, and fear of, Islam.
Wonk Room » Why Is Specter Speaking At Pipes-Sponsored Conference? 2009
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People are bowing in the presence of what they suppose to be the antiquity, that is, the hoary-headed wisdom, of the world.
Our Unitarian Gospel 1879
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It hushes the infant to its slumbers in the cradle with a song whose theme is the babe of Bethlehem; it allures the child to virtue by the example of Josiah, Timothy, and Samuel; it warns the wayward youth, and reproves the erring man, and calls the hoary sinner to repentance.
Characteristics of the Bible. A Sermon Preached before the Bible Convention of South Carolina, in the Washington Street Methodist Church, Columbia, September 15, 1862 S.C. 1862: Columbia 1862
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Finally, Mr. ARTHUR HATHERTON, as _Lob_, the host of the party, a kind of hoary old _Puck_ who had a _penchant_ for filling his house every
Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 153, October 24, 1917 Various
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The leaves of the willow are, in fact, white underneath, and it is this part of them which would appear "hoary" in the reflection in the brook.
Lectures on the English Poets Delivered at the Surrey Institution William Hazlitt 1804
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The "hoary" (to borrow a word) chestnut that it takes a big man to apologize was floated.
Simple Justice SHG 2010
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British novelist John Galsworthy knew the value of preserving the past -- and he would likely have counted "hoary" among those old things worth saving.
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That "hoary" ancestor evolved into "hoar," a synonym of "ancient" that has been part of our language since before the 12th century.
bilby commented on the word hoary
"Five years ago, when American forces quickly dismantled Iraqi society, liberal as well as conservative pundits announced that it was up to our forces to restore 'stability' -- as if the Iraqis themselves had wrought the chaos from which we were to rescue them. Though the American military did most of the destabilizing in Iraq, this historical fact was set aside in favor of the hoary myth that America is invariably a force for good, uniquely dedicated and qualified to bring order out of chaos around the world."
- 'General Entrap-Us or General Entrapped?', Ira Chernus, 6 April 2008.
April 7, 2008
silas commented on the word hoary
"The drunkest of Hrothgar's thanes come reeling and clanking down from their wall-hung beds, all shouting their meady, outrageous boasts, their heavy swords aswirl like eagles' wings. 'Woe, woe, woe!" cries Hrothgar, hoary with winters, peeking in, wide-eyed from his bedroom in back."
~ Grendel/John Gardner/1971 ~
September 17, 2009