different between ashy vs cadaverous

English

Etymology

From Middle English asshy, asky, equivalent to ash +? -y.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?æ?i/
• Rhymes: -æ?i

Adjective

ashy (comparative ashier, superlative ashiest)

1. Resembling ashes (especially in colour); (of a person’s complexion) unusually pale as a result of strong emotion, illness, etc.

   Synonyms: ashen, cineraceous, cinereous

   • 1593, William Shakespeare, Venus and Adonis, London: Richard Field^[1]

     Still is he sullein, still he lowres and frets,

     Twixt crimson shame, and anger ashie pale,

   • 1636, Thomas Heywood, Loves Maistresse: or, The Queens Masque, London: John Crowch, Act IV, Scene 1,^[2]

     Tell her that sicknesse, with her ashie hand,

     Hath swept away the beauty from my cheekes,

   • 1897, Bram Stoker, Dracula, New York: Grosset & Dunlap, Chapter 11, p. 126,^[3]

     Again the operation; again the narcotic; again some return of colour to the ashy cheeks, and the regular breathing of healthy sleep.

   • 1968, Ursula K. Le Guin, A Wizard of Earthsea, Chapter 7, p. 123,^[4]

     Beyond that black clot the sea lay, pale with last ashy gleam of day.

2. Comprising, containing, or covered with ash.

   Synonym: cinereous

   • 1591, Edmund Spenser, “Ruines of Rome” in Complaints, London: William Ponsonby,^[5]

     Ye heauenly spirites, whose ashie cinders lie

     Vnder deep ruines, with huge walls opprest,

   • 1720, Alexander Pope (translator), The Iliad: of Homer, London: Bernard Lintott, Volume 6, Book 23, p. 75,^[6]

     […] where yet the Embers glow,

     Wide o’er the Pyle the sable Wine they throw,

     And deep subsides the ashy Heap below.

   • 1861, Charles Dickens, Great Expectations, London: Chapman and Hall, Volume 3, Chapter 10, p. 151,^[7]

     […] I saw her sitting on the hearth in a ragged chair, close before, and lost in the contemplation of, the ashy fire.

   • 1991, Edwidge Danticat, “A Wall of Fire Rising” in Krik? Krak! New York: Soho Press, 1995,^[8]

     He lit the paper until it burned to an ashy film.

3. (African-American Vernacular) Having dry or dead skin (therefore discolored).
   • 1969, Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, New York: Random House, 2002, Chapter 4, p. 22,^[9]

     It was summer and his pants were short, so the pickle juice made clean streams down his ashy legs […]

   • 2015, Paul Beatty, The Sellout, New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, Chapter 11, p. 159,^[10]

     […] a skinny chalk-colored girl raised a hand so disgustingly ashy, so white and dry-skinned, that it could only be black.

Derived terms

• ashily
• ashiness

Translations

Anagrams

• Hays, SYHA, Shay, hays, shay, yahs

English

Etymology

cadaver +? -ous

Adjective

cadaverous (comparative more cadaverous, superlative most cadaverous)

1. Corpselike; hinting of death; imitating a cadaver.
   • 1917 rev. 1925 Ezra Pound, "Canto I"

     Dark blood flowed in the fosse,

     Souls out of Erebus, cadaverous dead ...

Synonyms

• See also Thesaurus:cadaverous

Translations

See also

• cadaverously