etiolate

English

WOTD – 31 October 2011

Etymology

French étioler, from Norman French étieuler, ultimately from Old French estuble (“stubble”), from Latin stupla, from stipula (“straw, stubble”) (English stubble).

Pronunciation

• enPR: ēʹtē-ə-lāt', IPA^(key): /ˈiːti.əleɪt/

  • Audio (Southern England)

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• Hyphenation: eti‧o‧late

Verb

etiolate (third-person singular simple present etiolates, present participle etiolating, simple past and past participle etiolated)

1. To make pale through lack of light, especially of a plant.
2. To make pale and sickly-looking.
   • 1980, Anthony Burgess, Earthly Powers:

     She was a very lovely woman in her late thirties, in a silk dress of screaming scarlet that would have etiolated a white woman to bled veal.

   • 1995, Martin Amis, The information:

     Gwynn and Richard were at the Westway Health and Fitness Centre, surrounded by thirty or forty etiolated drunks: playing snooker.

3. (intransitive) To become pale or blanched.

Related terms

• stubble

Translations

to make pale through lack of light

• German: etiolieren (de), vergeilen (de)
• Greenlandic: asingavaa, paqqingavaa
• Russian: этиолировать (ru) (etiolirovatʹ), обесцвечивать расте́ния (obescvečivatʹ rasténija)

to make a person pale and sickly-looking

• Russian: бледне́ть (ru) (blednétʹ), станови́ться бледным (stanovítʹsja blednym)

Adjective

etiolate (comparative more etiolate, superlative most etiolate)

1. etiolated