Beige
adj, noun, slang ·Common ·High school level
Definitions
- 1 A slightly yellowish gray colour, as that of unbleached wool. countable, uncountable
- 2 a very light brown wordnet
- 3 Debeige; a kind of woollen or mixed dress goods. countable, uncountable
- 1 Having a slightly yellowish gray colour, as that of unbleached wool.
"Dagobert had only one customer, an American who wore square, rimless glasses and a beige suit and looked like a Wall Street tycoon."
- 2 Comfortably dull and unadventurous, in a way that suggests middle-class suburbia. informal
"Think about it: he grew up in Iowa, the beigest of states, was doted on, loved generously by his parents, the top of his class, probably voted Most Handsome of 2000."
- 1 of a light greyish-brown color wordnet
Example
More examples"He tricked me into thinking that his favorite color is beige."
Etymology
Unadapted borrowing from French (dialectal) beige, from Old French bege (“color of undyed wool or cotton”), from an Alpine language (compare Franco-Provençal bézho, Romansch besch (“dull grey”)), from Vulgar Latin *bysseus (“cottony grey”) (compare French bis, Catalan bis, Italian bigio), from Late Latin byssus (“cotton”), from Ancient Greek βύσσος (bússos, “cotton homespun”), from Semitic (compare Hebrew/Aramaic בוץ (būṣ)). Doublet of bice.
Related phrases
More for "beige"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.