pastel
1a color having a soft, subdued shade.
a kind of dried paste made of pigments ground with chalk and compounded with gum water.
a chalklike crayon made from such paste.
the art of drawing with such crayons.
a drawing so made.
a short, light prose study or sketch.
having a soft, subdued shade.
drawn with pastels: a pastel portrait.
Origin of pastel
1Words Nearby pastel
Other definitions for pastel (2 of 2)
the woad plant.
the dye made from it.
Origin of pastel
2Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024
How to use pastel in a sentence
Instead of just using Amazon to buy another pastel daily planner dotted with flowers from Blue Sky, a company run by two men, I spent twice as much to buy one directly from Bloom Daily Planners, a company founded and run by women.
I Tried to Live Off Women-Owned Businesses. Turns Out, Men Still Run Everything | Alana Semuels | July 21, 2021 | TimeIt’s been roughly 80 years since the Xerces blue butterfly was last spotted flitting about on pastel wings across coastal California sand dunes.
This butterfly is the first U.S. insect known to go extinct because of people | Jake Buehler | July 20, 2021 | Science NewsThat’s slightly less remarkable in the case of McGinley, a Pennsylvania pastel artist whose drawings are at Martha Spak Gallery alongside Erin Raedeke’s still lifes.
In the galleries: An intimate panorama of video art’s variety and breadth | Mark Jenkins | June 25, 2021 | Washington PostAesthetically, everything from her album cover to her Instagram is a nod to her age, a slew of pastel colors and cooler-than-you photo shoots that show off her trendy fashion sense.
The figures in the Athenaeum show, drawn with pastel and pencil and supplemented by paint, are loose yet realistic.
In the galleries: Artists sport their chops with prints on the cutting edge | Mark Jenkins | March 19, 2021 | Washington Post
Kim Kardashian and Kanye West awkwardly embrace in color-coordinated pastel suits for their re-imagined Vogue cover.
The pastel outdoor furnishings look like leftovers from a closed nursery school, while inside collared shirts seem overdressed.
Adventures in Miami’s Coolest South Beach Alternative | The Daily Beast | July 10, 2014 | THE DAILY BEASTThorns support is for everyone, and there are no pastel colors or condescending cursive.
Portland Is Ground Zero for the Best Women’s Soccer in the World | Evelyn Shoop | June 30, 2014 | THE DAILY BEASTWhen we first came by, the chefs were experimenting with Lucky Charms ice cream, including little pastel marshmallows.
So they joyfully rode their new pastel bikes around the park for a while, until it was time to go to their first ballet class.
It was almost dawn, and the garden lay like a rare pastel outside his window; but Eric saw none of it.
The Medici Boots | Pearl Norton SwetIt was suddenly a mixture of muddled colors, instead of the carefully blended pastel shades he had selected.
Warm | Robert SheckleyFor this, in the winter of 1873, he made a pastel, a richly robed figure carrying a Japanese umbrella.
The Life of James McNeill Whistler | Elizabeth Robins PennellThere are a number of small studies and sketches in oil and pastel that show he knew what he wanted.
The Life of James McNeill Whistler | Elizabeth Robins PennellThe pose was natural to her, she said, though he made a number of pastel schemes before he painted it.
The Life of James McNeill Whistler | Elizabeth Robins Pennell
British Dictionary definitions for pastel
/ (ˈpæstəl, pæˈstɛl) /
a substance made of ground pigment bound with gum, used for making sticks for drawing
a crayon of this
a drawing done in such crayons
the medium or technique of pastel drawing
a pale delicate colour
a light prose work, esp a poetic one
another name for woad
(of a colour) pale; delicate: pastel blue
Origin of pastel
1Derived forms of pastel
- pastelist or pastellist, noun
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
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