Define:Yellow

Inglis

Alternative forms

• yeallow (obsolete), yeller (dialect)

Etymology

Frae Middle Inglis yelwe, yelou, frae Old English ġeolu, ġeolwe, frae Proto-Germanic *gelwaz, frae Proto-Indo-European *ǵʰelh₃-wos (compare Welsh gwelw (“pale”), Laitin helvus (“dull yellae”)), frae *ǵʰelh₃- (“gleam, yellae”) (compare Erse geal (“white, bricht”), Lithuanian žalias (“green”), Ancient Greek χλωρός (khlōrós, “licht green”), Persie زر (zar, “yellae”), Sanskrit हरि (hari, “greenish-yellae”)).

The verb is frae Old English ġeolwian, frae the adjective.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) /ˈjɛ.ləʊ/
• (General American) enPR: yĕl-'ō, /ˈjɛ.loʊ/
• (dialect) /ˈjɛ.ləʊɹ/
• Audio (US) 
• Audio (UK) 
• Rhymes: -en, -ɛləʊ

Adjective

Yellow (comparative Yellower, superlative Yellowest)

1. yellae in colour.
   • Milton:

     A sweaty reaper from his tillage brought / First fruits, the green ear and the yellow sheaf.

   • Keble:

     The line of yellow light dies fast away.

   • 1911, J. Milton Hayes, "The green eye of the little yellow god,"

     There's a one-eyed yellow idol / To the north of Kathmandu; / There's a little marble cross below the town; / And a brokenhearted woman / Tends the grave of 'Mad' Carew, / While the yellow god for ever gazes down.

   • 1962 (quotin c. 1398 text), Hans Kurath & Sherman M. Kuhn, editors, Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan Press, ISBN 978-0-472-01044-8, page 1242:

     dorrẹ̅, dōrī adj. & n. […] Golden or reddish-yellow […] (a. 1398) *Trev. Barth. 59b/a: ȝelouȝ colour [of urine] […] tokeneþ febleness of hete […] dorrey & citrine & liȝt red tokeneþ mene.

2. (informal) Lackin courage.
   • Monty Python

     You yellow bastards! Come back here and take what's coming to you!

Synonyms

• (lacking courage): cowardly

Antonyms

• (haein yellae as its colour): nonyellow, unyellow

Noun

Yellow (plural Yellows)

1.      The colour yellae.
   • 1892, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, The Yellow Wallpaper

     It is the strangest yellow, that wall-paper! It makes me think of all the yellow things I ever saw—not beautiful ones like buttercups, but old foul, bad yellow things.

2. (US) The intermediate licht in a set of three traffeck lichts, the illumination o which indicates that drivers should stap short o the intersection if it is safe tae do so.

Synonyms

• (intermediate licht in a set o three traffic lichts): amber (Breetish)

Antonyms

• (intermediate licht in a set of three traffic lichts): red, green

Hyponyms

• (color): bronze yellow, cadmium yellow, fast yellow AB, quinoline yellow, school bus yellow, sulfur yellow, sulphur yellow, taxi yellow, yellow-green, yellow 2G

See an aa

• Aw pages wi yellow as a prefix

Anagrams

• Yowell