Sooty

//ˈsʊti// adj, verb

adj, verb ·Uncommon ·College level

Definitions

Verb
  1. 1
    To blacken or make dirty with soot.

    "Sootied with noisome smoke."

Adjective
  1. 1
    Of, relating to, or producing soot.

    "Fire of sooty coal."

  2. 2
    Soiled with soot
  3. 3
    Of the color of soot.

    "The grisly legions that troop under the sooty flag of Acheron."

  4. 4
    Dark-skinned; black. literary, obsolete

    "While thus reduced, his few surviving senses were at once called into acute activity by the appearance of a sooty little negro, who placed within his grasp a misshapen fold of dirty paper, […]"

Adjective
  1. 1
    of the blackest black; similar to the color of jet or coal wordnet
  2. 2
    covered with or as if with soot wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
dirtybesmirchedblackblotchycoal blackcoal-black

Example

More examples

"I have a pet train I sometimes take to work. It makes the office all sooty though."

Etymology

From Middle English sooty, soty, equivalent to soot + -y. Probably influenced by similar Middle English suti (“dirty, filthy”), derived from the same root as Old English besūtian (“to befoul”).

Related phrases

Albertine sooty boubousooty albatrosssooty bark diseasesooty blotch and flyspecksooty grousesooty gruntersooty kangaroosooty orange tipsooty oystercatchersooty stripesooty ternsooty-headed bulbul

More for "sooty"

SynonymsSentencesPronunciationTranslate

Next best steps

Find stronger synonymsSee usage examplesCheck pronunciationBrowse writing guides

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