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Etymology edit

Latin cinereus, from cinis, cineris (ashes).

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Adjective edit

cinereous (comparative more cinereous, superlative most cinereous)

  1. (chiefly ornithology) Of an ash-gray colour.
    cinereous:  
    Synonym: ashen
    • 1784, Thomas Pennant, Arctic Zoology:
      With a bill two inches and a half long , very ſlender , and a little recurvated : head , and upper part of neck , cinereous , with dusky lines : over each eye a white line
    • 1810, Encyclopaedia Londinensis, or, Universal dictionary of arts, sciences, and literature, Volume 4:
      Coluber cinereus, the cinereous viper; a native cf South America and India; of a cinereous grey colour; the abdomen white, angulated ; the scales of the tail ferruginous at the edges.
    • 1819, Abraham Rees, The Cyclopædia: Or, Universal Dictionary of Arts, Sciences, and Literature, Volume 26:
      Wings tailed, white, with a brown border; beneath varied with ferruginous and yellow, the lower ones with two cinereous streaks.
    • 2014, Leonard Jenyns, A Manual of British Vertebrate Animals:
      [] breast and front of the neck cinereous brown; belly, vent, and under tail-coverts, pure white []
  2. Like ashes.
  3. Containing ashes.
    • 1802, Maria Guthrie, Matthew Guthrie, A tour performed in the years 1795-6 through the Taurida, or Crimea, the ancient kingdom of Bosphorus, the once-powerful republic of Tauric Cherson, and all the other countries on the north shore of the Euxine, ceded to Russia by the peace of Kainardgi and Jassy, page 439:
      We likewise see by the valuable Work of Andrew Burdon, professor of the Royal French Academy of Painting, that the Antients occasionally used the Amphora form in other parts of the world as both cinereous and lachrymal urns; []

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