hoarier

Adjective

hoary (comparative hoarier, superlative hoariest)

1. White, whitish, or greyish-white.
   • As hoary frost with spangles doth attire,
     The mossy braunches of an oke halfe ded,1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book I, Canto X”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, , stanzas 426–427

   Synonyms:

   albescent, griseous, whity, gray / grey, grayey / greyey, grayish / greyish, grisescent, whitish

2. White or grey with age.
   • The old man bowed his hoary head in acquiescence.

   Synonyms:

   grey-haired, grizzled, grizzly, silver-haired, white-haired, elder, elderly, geriatric, gerontologic, gerontological

3. Of a pale silvery grey.
4. Covered with short, dense, greyish white hairs.

   Synonyms:

   canescent

5. (figuratively) Old or old-fashioned; trite.
   • It was, however, most interesting work, and the moulders themselves were a decent crowd, never tired of making jokes about themselves such as the hoary one that moulders did not live long, which however ran counter to the other one that no germs could live in a foundry—the atmosphere was too foul.1944 November and December, A Former Pupil, “Some Memories of Crewe Works—II”, in Railway Magazine, page 342

   Synonyms:

   antediluvian, superseded, clichéd, played out, anachronistic, antediluvial, antiquated, antique, archaic, backward

6. (obsolete) Remote in time past.
   • The probability of these flattering fictions could no longer be examined, when the hoary antiquity of such traditions had gained them veneration. An adventure of ancient date was in blind after-ages too readily received as truth.1805 [1758], Samuel Hull?, transl. Wilcocke, chapter 5, in An Essay on National Pride, Albion Press, translation of Vom Nationalstolz by Johann Georg Ritter von Zimmermann, →OCLC, page 40

   Synonyms:

   bygone, foregone, backward, forepassed, forepast, historic, historical, long ago, olden, past

See all 7 meanings of hoary