Word.ws English Dictionary

isabelline

/ɪzəˈbɛlɪn/

isabelline adjective: coloured a greyish yellow.

isabelline: coloured a greyish yellow
Image: MPF, CC BY 2.5, via Wikimedia Commons

Adjective (1)

isabelline (comparative more isabelline, superlative most isabelline)

  1. Coloured a greyish yellow.
    • The isabelline (or Daurian) shrike is a greyish-yellow and hunts from prominent perches, impaling the corpses on thorns as a larder.
    • As Mr. Tristram has remarked, in regard to the inhabitants of the Sahara, all are protected by their “isabelline or sand-colour.”1871, Charles Darwin, “Birds—concluded”, in The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex. […], volume II, London: John Murray, […], →OCLC, Part II (Sexual Selection), page 224

Adjective (2) capitalized: Isabelline

Isabelline (not comparable)

  1. Of or related to Isabella I of Castile (1451–1504).
  2. Of a style of Spanish Gothic architecture that flourished under Isabella I of Castile.
    • A little later the focus shifted to Valladolid and became increasingly florid—the Isabelline style—reaching its most extreme in the facades of San Pablo and the Colegio San Gregorio.2004, Simon Baskett, The Rough Guide to Spain, Rough Guides, →ISBN, page 1051
    • The salient characteristics of Isabelline architecture include the use of extravagant formal elements such as helicoidal columns and mixtilinear arches with complete disregard of their tectonic or constructive function in the building, and profuse display of high-relief ornamentation in stone...2005, Alejandro Lapunzina, Architecture of Spain, Greenwood Publishing Group, →ISBN, page xlviii

Forms of isabelline

comparativemore isabelline
superlativemost isabelline

Origin of isabelline

From isabella + -ine.

Borrowed from Spanish isabelino. Equivalent to Isabella + -ine.

Words formed from isabelline

Phrases with isabelline

Questions about isabelline

What does isabelline mean?
Isabelline means coloured a greyish yellow.
What part of speech is isabelline?
Isabelline is an adjective.
How do you pronounce isabelline?
Isabelline is pronounced /ɪzəˈbɛlɪn/.

Words near isabelline in the dictionary

  1. Isabella piercing
  2. Isabella piercings
  3. Isabellas
  4. isabelle
  5. Isabellia
  6. isabelline
  7. isabelline bear
  8. isabelline bears
  9. isabelline shrike
  10. isabelline shrikes
  11. isabelline wheatear

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: isabelline (page history and authors); Isabelline (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.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-isabelline.wav.

Cite this entry: “isabelline.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/isabelline. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.