ashy
adj/ˈæʃi/
Etymology From Middle English asshy, asky, equivalent to ash + -y.
1
Resembling ashes (especially in colour); (of a person’s complexion) unusually pale as a result of strong emotion, illness, etc.
- Still is he sullein, still he lowres and frets, / Twixt crimson shame, and anger ashie pale,1593, [William Shakespeare], Venus and Adonis, London: […] Richard Field, […], →OCLC:
- Tell her that sicknesse, with her ashie hand, / Hath swept away the beauty from my cheekes,1634 (first performance), Thomas Heywood, Loves Maistresse: Or, The Queens Masque. […], London: […] Robert Raworth, for Iohn Crowch; and are to bee sold by Iasper Emery, […], published 1636, →OCLC, Act IIII:
2 more examples
- Again the operation; again the narcotic; again some return of colour to the ashy cheeks, and the regular breathing of healthy sleep.1897, Bram Stoker, chapter 11, in Dracula, New York, N.Y.: Modern Library, →OCLC, chapter IX, page 126:
- Beyond that black clot the sea lay, pale with last ashy gleam of day.1968, Ursula K. Le Guin, chapter 7, in A Wizard of Earthsea, page 123:
2
Comprising, containing, or covered with ash.
- Ye heauenly spirites, whose ashie cinders lie / Vnder deep ruines, with huge walls opprest,1591, Joachim du Bellay, “Ruines of Rome: By Bellay”, in Ed[mund] Sp[enser], transl., Complaints. Containing Sundrie Small Poemes of the Worlds Vanitie. […], London: […] William Ponsonbie, […], →OCLC:
- […] where yet the Embers glow, / Wide o’er the Pyle the sable Wine they throw, / And deep subsides the ashy Heap below.1715–1720, Homer, translated by Alexander Pope, “Book 23”, in The Iliad of Homer, volume (please specify |volume=I to VI), London: […] W[illiam] Bowyer, for Bernard Lintott […], →OCLC, page 75:
2 more examples
- […] I saw her sitting on the hearth in a ragged chair, close before, and lost in the contemplation of, the ashy fire.1860 December – 1861 August, Charles Dickens, chapter X, in Great Expectations […], volume III, London: Chapman and Hall, […], published October 1861, →OCLC, page 151:
- He lit the paper until it burned to an ashy film.1991, Edwidge Danticat, “A Wall of Fire Rising”, in Krik? Krak!, New York: Soho Press:
3
Having dry or dead skin (therefore discolored).
African-American Vernacular
- It was summer and his pants were short, so the pickle juice made clean streams down his ashy legs[…]1969, Maya Angelou, chapter 4, in I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, New York: Random House, →ISBN, page 22:
- After passing it under her runny nose, a skinny chalk-colored girl raised a hand so disgustingly ashy, so white and dry-skinned, that it could only be black.2015, Paul Beatty, chapter 11, in The Sellout, New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, page 159: