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''mealy'' ▫ᴱᴺ｜Definition｜1st｜20250816014044-00-⌔

mealy - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

Adjective

mealy (comparative mealier, superlative mealiest)

  • Resembling meal (the foodstuff).
    • ✤ Coordinate terms: floury, grainy
    • ✤ Below the hole the mice made in the woodwork was a pile of mealy sawdust.
  • Of the pale yellow color of a canary.
    • ✤ That it is a cross-breed there can be no doubt, from the fact that after a year or two the brilliant colours, both orange and black, begin to fade—the orange fading into a mealy tint, and the black to a dingy grey.1

Noun

mealy (plural mealies)

  • A canary of a pale yellow color.
    • ✤ Coordinate term: jonque
    • ✤ I know not, indeed, if the artist could give the beautiful orange which distinguish the jonque, or the mellowness of tint that pervades the mealy.2
    • ✤ The clear Norwich canaries, as well as the evenly marked, the crested, the ticked, the green, and the unevenly marked, are each divided into two separate classes, i.e., jonques and mealies.3

Etymology

From meal +‎ -y. Cognate with German mehlig.

Pronunciation

  • IPA: /ˈmiːli/
  • Audio (Southern England): 🔊
  • Rhymes: -iːli
  • Homophone: mealie

Printed 2026-06-28.

(echo:: @ ⌗)

Footnotes

  1. 1875, The Bird-Keeper’s Guide and Companion, page 19: ↩

  2. 1800, The New and Complete Canary-bird Fancier, page 8: ↩

  3. 1884, Robert Linlithgow Wallace, The Canary Book, page 225: ↩

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