Library / English Dictionary

SALLOW

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 I. (noun) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

Any of several Old World shrubby broad-leaved willows having large catkins; some are important sources for tanbark and charcoal

Classified under:

Nouns denoting plants

Hypernyms ("sallow" is a kind of...):

willow; willow tree (any of numerous deciduous trees and shrubs of the genus Salix)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "sallow"):

florist's willow; goat willow; pussy willow; Salix caprea (much-branched Old World willow having large catkins and relatively large broad leaves)

Holonyms ("sallow" is a member of...):

genus Salix; Salix (a large and widespread genus varying in size from small shrubs to large trees: willows)

 II. (adjective) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

Unhealthy looking

Synonyms:

sallow; sickly

Classified under:

Adjectives

Similar:

unhealthy (not in or exhibiting good health in body or mind)

Derivation:

sallowness (a sickly yellowish skin color)

 III. (verb) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

Cause to become sallow

Example:

The illness has sallowed her face

Classified under:

Verbs of size, temperature change, intensifying, etc.

Hypernyms (to "sallow" is one way to...):

discolor (cause to lose or change color)

Sentence frame:

Something ----s something

Credits

 Context examples: 

He sprang from his chair and paced about the room in uncontrollable agitation, with a flush upon his sallow cheeks and a nervous clasping and unclasping of his long thin hands.

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

The second man was a long, dried-up creature, with lank hair and sallow cheeks.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

I have not forgot your description of Mr. Tilney—'a brown skin, with dark eyes, and rather dark hair.' Well, my taste is different. I prefer light eyes, and as to complexion—do you know—I like a sallow better than any other. You must not betray me, if you should ever meet with one of your acquaintance answering that description.

(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)

I was now able to concentrate my attention on the group by the fire, and I presently gathered that the new-comer was called Mr. Mason; then I learned that he was but just arrived in England, and that he came from some hot country: which was the reason, doubtless, his face was so sallow, and that he sat so near the hearth, and wore a surtout in the house.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

Half a dozen other sallow Hebrew faces showed how energetically the Jews of Houndsditch and Whitechapel had taken to the sport of the land of their adoption, and that in this, as in more serious fields of human effort, they could hold their own with the best.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

I made his honour my most humble acknowledgments for the good opinion he was pleased to conceive of me, but assured him at the same time, “that my birth was of the lower sort, having been born of plain honest parents, who were just able to give me a tolerable education; that nobility, among us, was altogether a different thing from the idea he had of it; that our young noblemen are bred from their childhood in idleness and luxury; that, as soon as years will permit, they consume their vigour, and contract odious diseases among lewd females; and when their fortunes are almost ruined, they marry some woman of mean birth, disagreeable person, and unsound constitution (merely for the sake of money), whom they hate and despise. That the productions of such marriages are generally scrofulous, rickety, or deformed children; by which means the family seldom continues above three generations, unless the wife takes care to provide a healthy father, among her neighbours or domestics, in order to improve and continue the breed. That a weak diseased body, a meagre countenance, and sallow complexion, are the true marks of noble blood; and a healthy robust appearance is so disgraceful in a man of quality, that the world concludes his real father to have been a groom or a coachman. The imperfections of his mind run parallel with those of his body, being a composition of spleen, dullness, ignorance, caprice, sensuality, and pride.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

As I entered, a sallow Malay attendant had hurried up with a pipe for me and a supply of the drug, beckoning me to an empty berth.

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

He snatched off the dark beard which had disguised him and threw it on the ground, disclosing a long, sallow, clean-shaven face below it.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

His manner was polite; his accent, in speaking, struck me as being somewhat unusual,—not precisely foreign, but still not altogether English: his age might be about Mr. Rochester's,—between thirty and forty; his complexion was singularly sallow: otherwise he was a fine-looking man, at first sight especially.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

The confident smile with which he had watched the opening rounds had long vanished from his lips, and his cheeks had turned of a sallow pallor, whilst his small, fierce grey eyes looked furtively from under his craggy brows, and more than once he burst into savage imprecations when Wilson was beaten to the ground.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)