noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun

1. 1
   A brown pigment made from soot, especially from beech wood. countable, uncountable
2. 2
   a water-soluble brownish-yellow pigment made by boiling wood soot wordnet
3. 3
   A mid-to-dark brown color resembling the pigment. countable, uncountable

   "[O]h! what an object he was! The rings round his eyes were of the colour of bistre […]"

Synonyms

All synonyms

bisterbister

Example

More examples

"[O]h! what an object he was! The rings round his eyes were of the colour of bistre […]"

Etymology

From French bistre.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.