Word of The Day for Thursday, March 10, 2011

fuscous

fus•cous (FUHS-kuhs)  adj

Definition:
of a brownish-gray color; dark or dusky
Origin:
1662; from Latin fuscus "dark, swarthy"

Related:
Related Words: obfuscate

Sentence Examples:
• Yet we were still ten versts from the next village, and in the meanwhile the large purple cloudbank--arisen from no one knows where--was advancing steadily towards us. The sun, not yet obscured, was picking out its fuscous shape with dazzling light, and marking its front with grey stripes running right down to the horizon. -Boyhood, Leo Tolstoy

• "My dear Lancelot, when did I ever set up to be a gentleman?  You know that was always your part of the contract."  And a swarthy, thick-set young man with a big nose lowered the dripping umbrella he had been holding over Lancelot, and stepped from the gloom of the street into the fuscous cheerfulness of the ill-lit passage. -Merely Mary Ann, Israel Zangwill

• These colors may be paler or deeper. They may be obscured by a fuscous shade or may be modified by a dull or lustrous surface.  -The Genus Pinus, George Russell Shaw

Sources: Wiktionary, Online Etymology

Word-E: A Word-A-Day

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