Library / English Dictionary

DISCOLOUR

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 I. (verb) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

Change color, often in an undesired manner

Example:

The shirts discolored

Synonyms:

color; colour; discolor; discolour

Classified under:

Verbs of size, temperature change, intensifying, etc.

Hypernyms (to "discolour" is one way to...):

change (undergo a change; become different in essence; losing one's or its original nature)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "discolour"):

blush; crimson; flush; redden (turn red, as if in embarrassment or shame)

blanch; blench; pale (turn pale, as if in fear)

bronze; tan (get a tan, from wind or sun)

burn; sunburn (get a sunburn by overexposure to the sun)

white; whiten (turn white)

black; blacken; melanise; melanize (make or become black)

turn (change color)

silver (turn silver)

dye (color with dye)

redden (turn red or redder)

purple (become purple)

gray; grey (turn grey)

yellow (turn yellow)

tone (change the color or tone of)

green (turn or become green)

blue (turn blue)

Sentence frames:

Something ----s
Somebody ----s

Derivation:

discolouration (the act of changing the natural color of something by making it duller or dingier or unnatural or faded)

discolouration (a soiled or discolored appearance)

Credits

 Context examples: 

A walk of a few hundred yards brought us to the high building of discoloured brick in Piccadilly, which served the Hamiltons as a town house, and which Nelson used as his head-quarters when business or pleasure called him from Merton.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

The tomb in the day-time, and when wreathed with fresh flowers, had looked grim and gruesome enough; but now, some days afterwards, when the flowers hung lank and dead, their whites turning to rust and their greens to browns; when the spider and the beetle had resumed their accustomed dominance; when time-discoloured stone, and dust-encrusted mortar, and rusty, dank iron, and tarnished brass, and clouded silver-plating gave back the feeble glimmer of a candle, the effect was more miserable and sordid than could have been imagined.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

For the rest, it was cracked, exceedingly dusty, and spotted in several places, although there seemed to have been some attempt to hide the discoloured patches by smearing them with ink.

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

One of these is discoloured and worn to some slight extent, but the other is new.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

The jaw dropped, the upper lip lifted, and two rows of tobacco-discoloured teeth appeared.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

It was a discoloured face—it was a savage face.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

It was a linen bag which contained within it a mass of old rusted and discoloured metal and several dull-coloured pieces of pebble or glass.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

How vividly I call to mind the damp about the house, the green cracked flagstones in the court, an old leaky water-butt, and the discoloured trunks of some of the grim trees, which seemed to have dripped more in the rain than other trees, and to have blown less in the sun!

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

The lining had been of red silk, but was a good deal discoloured.

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

They had spent the morning raking among the ashes of the burned wood-pile, and besides the charred organic remains they had secured several discoloured metal discs.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)