varicolored
adjEtymology From vari- + color + -ed.
1
Having a variety of colors; variegated or motley.
- […] the habit of the greater part of them is only a wreath of Callico tyed about their heads; their mid-parts are circled with a Zone of vari-colored plad, and have Sandalls upon their feet, elsewhere being naked […]1638, Thomas Herbert, Some Yeares Travels into Divers Parts of Asia and Afrique, Book 2, p, 128:
- The Fisherman looked into the water and was much astonished to see therein vari-coloured fishes, white and red, blue and yellow; however he cast his net and, hauling it in, saw that he had netted four fishes, one of each colour.1885, Richard F[rancis] Burton, transl. and editor, A Plain and Literal Translation of the Arabian Nights’ Entertainments, now Entituled The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night […], Shammar edition, volume I, [London]: […] Burton Club […], →OCLC, page 62:
2 more examples
- The varicolored cloud of dust that the sun had stirred up in the sky was settling by slow degrees.1937, Zora Neale Hurston, chapter 1, in Their Eyes Were Watching God, University of Illinois Press, published 1978, page 15:
- Watching Jesse Jackson in tears in Grant Park, pressed up against the varicolored American public, it seemed like he, at least, had received the answer he needed: only a many-voiced man could have spoken to that many people.2009, Zadie Smith, “Speaking in Tongues”, in Changing My Mind: Occasional Essays, New York: Penguin:
- Related terms
- variegate, variegated