dusty miller
dusty miller noun: a formulaic phrase for a miller, related to the dust generated in the milling process.
Noun
dusty miller (plural dusty millers)
- A formulaic phrase for a miller, related to the dust generated in the milling process.
- Hey, the dusty miller, / And his dusty coat! / He will win a shilling, / Ere he spend a groat. / Dusty was the coat, / Dusty was the colour; / Dusty was the kiss, / That I gat frae the miller.1829, Robert Chambers, The Scottish Songs, page 539
- The stereotypical image of the "dusty miller", as depicted in popular legend and some traditional literature, is a barrier, and milling is seen by younger people as low-status. There is an urgent need to change this perception through measures such as changing the designation to something like...2005: Baitinger, A, CAB abstract of "Miller - a job with promotion and opportunities for the future!", Mühle + Mischfutter, (Vol. 142) (No. 8) 233-272
- Any of several species of plants with leaves of a dusty appearance: Centaurea cineraria, Jacobaea maritima, Artemisia stelleriana, Spyridium parvifolium, and Silene coronaria, syn. Lychnis coronaria.
Forms of dusty miller
| plural | dusty millers |
|---|
Questions about dusty miller
- What does dusty miller mean?
- Dusty miller means a formulaic phrase for a miller, related to the dust generated in the milling process.
- What part of speech is dusty miller?
- Dusty miller is a noun.
- What is the plural of dusty miller?
- The plural of dusty miller is dusty millers.
Words near dusty miller in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: dusty miller (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-au-dusty miller.ogg.
Cite this entry: “dusty miller.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/dusty_miller. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.