Etiolate
//ˈiːti.əleɪt// adj, verb
adj, verb ·Uncommon ·Advanced level
Definitions
Verb
- 1 To make pale through lack of light, especially of a plant.
- 2 make pale or sickly wordnet
- 3 To make pale and sickly-looking.
"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."
- 4 bleach and alter the natural development of (a green plant) by excluding sunlight wordnet
- 5 To become pale or blanched. intransitive
Show 1 more definition
- 6 make weak by stunting the growth or development of wordnet
Adjective
- 1 etiolated
Adjective
- 1 (especially of plants) developed without chlorophyll by being deprived of light wordnet
Example
More examples"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."
Etymology
French étioler, from Norman French étieuler, ultimately from Old French estuble (“stubble”), from Latin stupla, from stipula (“straw, stubble”) (English stubble).
More for "etiolate"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.