fulvous

[fuhl-vuhs]

adjective

1. tawny; dull yellowish-gray or yellowish-brown.

fulvous

/ ˈfʊl-, ˈfʌlvəs /

adjective

1. of a dull brownish-yellow colour; tawny

Word History and Origins

Origin of fulvous¹

1655–65; < Latin fulvus deep yellow, tawny, reddish-yellow; -ous

Word History and Origins

Origin of fulvous¹

C17: from Latin fulvus reddish yellow, gold-coloured, tawny; probably related to fulgēre to shine

Example Sentences

Humans’ teeth, which once met in a predator’s vise, slid into an overbite as people turned to the softer foods that agriculture provided, shaping sounds such as “farm,” “vivid,” “fulvous” and “favorite.”

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Others come in one of the nearly infinite shades of brown that tax the vocabulary of avian taxonomists: rufous, fulvous, ferruginous, bran-coloured, foxy.

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Horace R. Cayton, co-author of the groundbreaking sociological study “Black Metropolis,” sits pensively in a portrait from 1949, his skin lit into fulvous brown by sunlight from a single window.

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In the rice fields of eastern Texas, this practice has seriously reduced the populations of the fulvous tree duck, a tawny-colored, gooselike duck of the Gulf Coast.

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Shell ventricose, with fulvous spots and white bands; spire slender, acute; suture entire.

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