beige
English Edit
Etymology Edit
Borrowed from French (dialectal) beige, from Old French bege (“color of undyed wool or cotton”), from an Alpine language (compare Franco-Provençal bézho, Romansch besch (“dull grey”)), from Vulgar Latin *bysseus (“cottony grey”) (compare French bis, Catalan bis, Italian bigio), from Late Latin byssus (“cotton”), from Ancient Greek βύσσος (bússos, “cotton homespun”), from Semitic (compare Hebrew/Aramaic בוץ (būṣ)). Doublet of bice.
Pronunciation Edit
Noun Edit
beige (countable and uncountable, plural beiges)
- A slightly yellowish gray colour, as that of unbleached wool.
- beige:
- Debeige; a kind of woollen or mixed dress goods.
Translations Edit
colour
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Adjective Edit
beige (comparative beiger or more beige, superlative beigest or most beige)
- Having a slightly yellowish gray colour, as that of unbleached wool.
- Synonyms: bland, indistinct, colorless, drab
- 1956, Delano Ames, chapter 24, in Crime out of Mind[1]:
- Dagobert had only one customer, an American who wore square, rimless glasses and a beige suit and looked like a Wall Street tycoon.
- (informal, originally US) Comfortably dull and unadventurous, in a way that suggests middle-class suburbia.
- 2007, Prairie L. Markussen, Cover, page 48:
- Think about it: he grew up in Iowa, the beigest of states, was doted on, loved generously by his parents, the top of his class, probably voted Most Handsome of 2000.
- 2010, Gerald J. McCarthy, A Man of Substances:
- In the beigest parts of suburbia where I grew up, bridge was a game played by groups of parents in recreation rooms furnished with upright pianos and souvenir sombreros.
- 2013 March 25, Eric Asimov, “A Beige Wine for a Beige Meal”, in NYT Diner’s Journal Blog[3]:
- For a meal of relentlessly beige food, may I suggest the beigest of wines? That would be chardonnay, which will go beautifully with Melissa Clark’s chicken potpie.
- 2016, Penelope Garcia, “The Witness”, in Criminal Minds, season 11, episode 2:
- He has no criminal record. He has no traffic tickets. His social media posts are just like... he's beige.
Derived terms Edit
Translations Edit
having a slightly yellowish gray colour
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See also Edit
Further reading Edit
beige on Wikipedia.Wikipedia - Jonathon Green (2023), “beige adj.”, in Green's Dictionary of Slang
Afrikaans Edit
Etymology Edit
From Dutch beige, from French beige.
Pronunciation Edit
Audio (file)
Adjective Edit
beige (attributive beige, comparative beiger, superlative beigeste)
Dutch Edit
Etymology Edit
Borrowed from French beige, from Middle French beige, from Old French bege.
Pronunciation Edit
Adjective Edit
beige (comparative beiger, superlative meest beige or beigest)
Inflection Edit
| Inflection of beige | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| uninflected | beige | |||
| inflected | beige | |||
| comparative | beiger | |||
| positive | comparative | superlative | ||
| predicative/adverbial | beige | beiger | het beigest het beigeste | |
| indefinite | m./f. sing. | beige | beigere | beigeste |
| n. sing. | beige | beiger | beigeste | |
| plural | beige | beigere | beigeste | |
| definite | beige | beigere | beigeste | |
| partitive | beiges | beigers | — | |
Derived terms Edit
Finnish Edit
Alternative forms Edit
Etymology Edit
Pronunciation Edit
- IPA(key): /ˈbei̯ɡe/, [ˈbe̞i̯ɡe̞]
- IPA(key): /ˈbeːʒi/, [ˈbe̞ːʒi]
- Rhymes: -eiɡe
- Syllabification(key): bei‧ge
Adjective Edit
beige (comparative beigempi, superlative beigein)
Declension Edit
| Inflection of beige (Kotus type 8/nalle, no gradation) | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| nominative | beige | beiget | |
| genitive | beigen | beigejen | |
| partitive | beigeä | beigejä | |
| illative | beigeen | beigeihin | |
| singular | plural | ||
| nominative | beige | beiget | |
| accusative | nom. | beige | beiget |
| gen. | beigen | ||
| genitive | beigen | beigejen beigeinrare | |
| partitive | beigeä | beigejä | |
| inessive | beigessä | beigeissä | |
| elative | beigestä | beigeistä | |
| illative | beigeen | beigeihin | |
| adessive | beigellä | beigeillä | |
| ablative | beigeltä | beigeiltä | |
| allative | beigelle | beigeille | |
| essive | beigenä | beigeinä | |
| translative | beigeksi | beigeiksi | |
| instructive | — | beigein | |
| abessive | beigettä | beigeittä | |
| comitative | — | beigeine | |
Noun Edit
beige
- beige (color)
Declension Edit
| Inflection of beige (Kotus type 8/nalle, no gradation) | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| nominative | beige | beiget | ||
| genitive | beigen | beigejen | ||
| partitive | beigeä | beigejä | ||
| illative | beigeen | beigeihin | ||
| singular | plural | |||
| nominative | beige | beiget | ||
| accusative | nom. | beige | beiget | |
| gen. | beigen | |||
| genitive | beigen | beigejen beigeinrare | ||
| partitive | beigeä | beigejä | ||
| inessive | beigessä | beigeissä | ||
| elative | beigestä | beigeistä | ||
| illative | beigeen | beigeihin | ||
| adessive | beigellä | beigeillä | ||
| ablative | beigeltä | beigeiltä | ||
| allative | beigelle | beigeille | ||
| essive | beigenä | beigeinä | ||
| translative | beigeksi | beigeiksi | ||
| instructive | — | beigein | ||
| abessive | beigettä | beigeittä | ||
| comitative | See the possessive forms below. | |||
| Possessive forms of beige (type nalle) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Further reading Edit
- "beige" in Kielitoimiston sanakirja (Dictionary of Contemporary Finnish).
French Edit
Etymology Edit
Inherited from Old French bege.
Pronunciation Edit
Adjective Edit
beige (plural beiges)
Descendants Edit
Descendants of beige in other languages
- → Catalan: beix
- → Dutch: beige
- Afrikaans: beige
- → English: beige
- Hindi: बेज (bej)
- → Hijazi Arabic: بيج (bēj)
- → Estonian: beež
- → Finnish: beesi, beige, bees
- → Galician: beixe
- → German: beige, Beige
- → Greek: μπεζ (bez)
- → Hungarian: bézs
- → Italian: beige
- → Japanese: ベージュ (bēju)
- → Korean: 베이지 (beiji)
- → Louisiana Creole: bèj
- → Luxembourgish: beige
- → Persian: بژ
- → Polish: beż
- → Portuguese: bege
- → Romanian: bej
- → Russian: беж (bež)
- → Spanish: beis, beige
- → Swedish: beige
- → Turkish: bej
- → Vietnamese: be
Further reading Edit
- “beige”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.
German Edit
Etymology 1 Edit
Pronunciation Edit
- Predicative form: IPA(key): /beːʃ/, /bɛːʃ/
- Inflected forms: IPA(key): /beːʒə/, /bɛːʒə/, /beːʃə/, /bɛːʃə/
- Rhymes: -eːʃə, -eːʃ, -ɛːʃ, -ɛːʒə, -eːʒə, -ɛːʃə
Adjective Edit
beige (strong nominative masculine singular beiger, not comparable)
Usage notes Edit
Beige is inflected like a regular adjective in pronunciation. However, since its basic form is written with a mute -e, the inflectional ending -e is not visible in writing: das beige [beːʒə] Haus – the beige house.
The other inflectional endings are visible: in dem beigen Haus – in the beige house.
Declension Edit
Positive forms of beige (uncomparable)
| number & gender | singular | plural | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| masculine | feminine | neuter | |||
| predicative | er ist beige | sie ist beige | es ist beige | sie sind beige | |
| strong declension (without article) |
nominative | beiger | beige | beiges | beige |
| genitive | beigen | beiger | beigen | beiger | |
| dative | beigem | beiger | beigem | beigen | |
| accusative | beigen | beige | beiges | beige | |
| weak declension (with definite article) |
nominative | der beige | die beige | das beige | die beigen |
| genitive | des beigen | der beigen | des beigen | der beigen | |
| dative | dem beigen | der beigen | dem beigen | den beigen | |
| accusative | den beigen | die beige | das beige | die beigen | |
| mixed declension (with indefinite article) |
nominative | ein beiger | eine beige | ein beiges | (keine) beigen |
| genitive | eines beigen | einer beigen | eines beigen | (keiner) beigen | |
| dative | einem beigen | einer beigen | einem beigen | (keinen) beigen | |
| accusative | einen beigen | eine beige | ein beiges | (keine) beigen | |
Related terms Edit
Etymology 2 Edit
See the etymology of the corresponding lemma form.
Pronunciation Edit
Verb Edit
beige
- inflection of beigen:
Further reading Edit
Luxembourgish Edit
Etymology Edit
Pronunciation Edit
Adjective Edit
beige (masculine beigen, neuter beiget, comparative méi beige, superlative am beigesten)
Declension Edit
This adjective needs an inflection-table template.
Norwegian Bokmål Edit
Alternative forms Edit
- besj (alternative spelling)
Adjective Edit
beige (singular and plural beige)
References Edit
- “beige” in The Bokmål Dictionary.
Norwegian Nynorsk Edit
Alternative forms Edit
- besj (alternative spelling)
Adjective Edit
beige (singular and plural beige, comparative beigare, indefinite superlative beigast, definite superlative beigaste)
References Edit
- “beige” in The Nynorsk Dictionary.
Spanish Edit
Etymology Edit
Unadapted borrowing from French beige.
Pronunciation Edit
Adjective Edit
beige (invariable)
- Alternative form of beis
Noun Edit
beige m (uncountable)
- Alternative form of beis
Usage notes Edit
According to Royal Spanish Academy (RAE) prescriptions, unadapted foreign words should be written in italics in a text printed in roman type, and vice versa, and in quotation marks in a manuscript text or when italics are not available. In practice, this RAE prescription is not always followed.
Further reading Edit
- “beige”, in Diccionario de la lengua española, Vigésima tercera edición, Real Academia Española, 2014
Swedish Edit
Etymology Edit
Attested from 1895. Borrowed from French beige. The slang definition is likely associated to the perceived blandness of the color.
Pronunciation Edit
Adjective Edit
beige
- beige.
- Hon hade en lång, beige kappa på sig.
- She wore a long, beige coat.
- (slang) boring, uninteresting, negative.
- Din morsa är så jävla beige!
- Your mother is so damn dull.
Declension Edit
| Inflection of beige | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Indefinite | Positive | Comparative | Superlative2 |
| Common singular | beige | beigare | beigast |
| Neuter singular | beigt | beigare | beigast |
| Plural | beiga | beigare | beigast |
| Masculine plural3 | beige | beigare | beigast |
| Definite | Positive | Comparative | Superlative |
| Masculine singular1 | beige | beigare | beigaste |
| All | beiga | beigare | beigaste |
| 1) Only used, optionally, to refer to things whose natural gender is masculine. 2) The indefinite superlative forms are only used in the predicative. 3) Dated or archaic | |||