celadon means of a pale green colour tinted with gray.
celadon is pronounced /ˈsɛlədən/.
Why “celadon” is a great word
A pale grayish-green color, or a ceramic ware or glaze of that color, originally from China. From the French céladon, named for the character Céladon in Honoré d'Urfé's 17th-century pastoral novel L'Astrée, who wore pale green ribbons; the character's name derives from Latin Celadon, a name of a warrior in Ovid's Metamorphoses, likely related to Ancient Greek κέλαδος (kélados, "din, clamour"). First recorded in English use 1760–70. Unlike "jade," which names a hard gemstone and its often deeper green, or "sage," a muted green associated with the aromatic herb, celadon is the color of breath held in porcelain—cool, faintly opaque, touched with ash. It is the glaze pooling thin over a Song dynasty bowl, the quiet green of willow leaves seen through morning mist, and the tender chill of a kiln-cooled shard resting in the palm; a hue that speaks not of clamor, but of the quiet achieved through centuries of ash and flame.
Etymology
Borrowed from the French céladon, from the character named Céladon, who wore pale green ribbons, in the novel L'Astrée by Honoré d'Urfé, from Latin Celadon, a warrior's name in Ovid's Metamorphoses, related to Ancient Greek κέλᾰδος (kélădos, “din, clamour”).
adj
- Of a pale green colour tinted with gray.e.g.“[H]e stroked a soft blue cat with celadon eyes which had appeared from nowhere and now made itself comfortable in his lap […].” — 1941, Vladimir Nabokov, The Real Life of Sebastian Knight, Penguin 1971 edition, page 40:
noun
- A pale green colour, possibly tinted with gray.e.g.“Eau de Nil (“water of the Nile”) is a tricky color to pin down precisely. It is a light-greenish hue, more saturated than celadon, less gray than sage.” — 2018 February 13, Katy Kelleher, “Eau de Nil, the Light-Green Color of Egypt-Obsessed Europe”, in The Paris Review:
- A pale green Chinese glaze.
- A ceramic ware with a pale green glaze.
Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
Words closest in meaning
By meaning, not spelling — each word's AI semantic fingerprint, nearest first.