powdery

English

Etymology

From powder + -y.

Pronunciation

• (US) IPA^(key): /ˈpaʊdəɹi/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

Adjective

powdery (comparative more powdery, superlative most powdery)

1. Of or pertaining to powder.

   Synonym: (rare) pulveral

   powdery drink

   • 1870–1871 (date written), Mark Twain [pseudonym; Samuel Langhorne Clemens], chapter XXI, in Roughing It, Hartford, Conn.: American Publishing Company [et al.], published 1872, →OCLC, page 157:

     We were plowing through great deeps of powdery alkali dust that rose in thick clouds and floated across the plain like smoke from a burning house. We were coated with it like millers; so were the coach, the mules, the mail-bags, the driver—we and the sage-brush and the other scenery were all one monotonous color.

   • 2010, Leaf, White Album 2:

     "Ah..." At last - it's started falling. The sky that had been on the verge of breaking down ever since I arrived at the airport pulled itself together ever so slightly, its tears frozen over by the chilly wind. The deafening roar of jet engines slowly fades away as it grows ever more distant. And as if to drown out the noise, the scattering powdery snow descending from the heavens grows ever more dense.

2. Having a lot of powder.

Antonyms

• nonpowdery

Derived terms

• powdery liveforever
• powdery mildew
• powdery scab
• unpowdery

Related terms

• powderiness
• powderily

Translations

of or pertaining to powder

• Finnish: jauhemainen (fi), jauhoinen (fi)
• French: poudreux (fr)
• German: pulverig (de), pulverartig (de), pudrig (de), puderartig
• Greek:

  Ancient Greek: ψαφαρός m (psapharós)

• Irish: púdrach
• Manx: poodyragh
• Plautdietsch: pulwrich
• Russian: порошкообра́зный (ru) (poroškoobráznyj)

See also

• Thesaurus:granular