sallow

/ˈsæləʊ//ˈsæloʊ/

sallow adjective: of a sickly pale colour.

Image: Willow, CC BY-SA 2.5, via Wikimedia Commons

Adjective

sallow (comparative sallower, superlative sallowest)

(most regions) Of a sickly pale colour.
- Jesu Maria, what a deal of brine
  Hath wash’d thy sallow cheeks for Rosaline!c. 1591–1595 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Romeo and Ivliet”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and...
- […] were it not that his Complexion is sallow, and that he is something short of a Leg, and Blind of one Eye, he would positively be the most lovely of all the human Species.1770, Henry Brooke, The Fool of Quality, volume 5, Dublin, page 162
(Ireland) Of a tan colour, associated with people from southern Europe or East Asia.
- The girls are mostly Slavic-pretty, long-limbed with high cheekbones, sallow skin and green eyes. They are the closest thing to supermodels that Mulhuddart has ever seen.2007 December 23, David McWilliams, We must begin the culture debate
- A yellow undertone is often found on people with sallow skin – e.g. Asian.17 January 2012, Aisling, "Am I pink or yellow? How to choose the right foundation tone. And what is the deal with Mac foundations?" beaut.ie
Having skin (especially on the face) of a sickly pale colour.
- Time is jealous of you, and wars against your lilies and your roses. You will become sallow, and hollow-cheeked, and dull-eyed.1891, Oscar Wilde, “chapter 2”, in The Picture of Dorian Gray, London; New York, N.Y.: Ward Lock & Co., →OCLC
- She put her hand on the arm of her careworn, sallow father, and frothing her light draperies, proceeded over the eternal red carpet.1920, D. H. Lawrence, chapter 1, in Women in Love, New York: Barnes & Noble Classics, published 1996, page 14
Having a similar pale, yellowish colour.
- The terrible descriptions were so real and vivid, that the sallow pages seemed to turn red with gore […]1838, Boz [pseudonym; Charles Dickens], Oliver Twist; […], volume (please specify |volume=I, II, or III), London: Richard Bentley, […], →OCLC
- On the opposite bank of the Allier the land kept mounting for miles to the horizon: a tanned and sallow autumn landscape […]1879, Robert Louis Stevenson, “Velay”, in Travels with a Donkey in the Cévennes, Boston: Roberts Brothers, page 48
Foul; murky; sickly.
- Mr. President, the sallow air of our cities, the blackened sands of our seashores, our lakes and harbors reeking of sewage and depleted of oxygen are but a part of the sad legacy of the idea that nature can be treated as a servant, blindly obedient to every want, whim or pleasure of man.1972, United States. Congress. House. Committee on Merchant Marine and Fisheries. Subcommittee on Fisheries and Wildlife Conservation, Predatory Mammals and Endangered Species, page 559
- The boat's deck was covered in moss, and its warm, sallow water was filled with lichens that gave off an eerie green glow.2011, Jacob Murphy, Guardians, page 44

Verb

sallow (third-person singular simple present sallows, present participle sallowing, simple past and past participle sallowed)

(intransitive) To become sallow.
- The tan of his sunburnt face and hands contrasted sadly with the sallowing skin of the girl-wife, who, despite his care, was sinking under her task of son-bearing.1912, Flora Annie Steel, King-Errant, New York: Frederick A. Stokes, Book 2, Chapter 6, p. 212
- I might have stemmed them in a narrow vase
  And watched each petal sallowing . . .1918, Lola Ridge, “The Garden”, in The Ghetto and Other Poems, New York: Huebsch, page 93
(transitive) To cause (someone or something) to become sallow.
- The climate of this country is the scape-goat upon which all ill looks and ill health of the ladies is laid; but while they are brought up as effeminately as they are, take as little exercise, live in rooms like ovens during the winter, and marry as early as they do, it will appear evident that...1835, Fanny Kemble (as Frances Anne Butler), Journal, London: John Murray, Volume 1, entry for 15 September, 1832, p. 105, footnote
- But would a pretender carry his or her cunning to the extreme of fortifying the manuscript in every possible way against the sallowing touch of time[…]?1889, George Washington Cable, “How I Got them”, in Strange True Stories of Louisiana, New York: Scribner, page 10

Noun

sallow (plural sallows)

A European willow, Salix caprea, that has broad leaves, large catkins and tough wood.
- I[f] a man eate the flowers of a sallow or wyllowe tree, or of a Poplet tree, they wyl make cold al the heate of carnall lust in hym.c. 1553, Humphrey Llwyd (translator), The Treasury of Healthe, London: William Coplande, Remedies, Chapter 44
- And fast beside a little brooke did pas
  Of muddie water, that like puddle stanke,
  By which few crooked sallowes grew in ranke:1596, Edmund Spenser, “Book IV, Canto V”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, page 75
Synonyms:

goat willow
A willow twig or branch.
- Who-so that buildeth his hous al of salwes,
  And priketh his blinde hors over the falwes,
  And suffreth his wyf to go seken halwes,
  Is worthy to been hanged on the galwes!1387–1400, Geoffrey Chaucer, “(please specify the story via the 'title' parameter)”, in The Canterbury Tales, [Westminster: William Caxton, published 1478], →OCLC; republished in [William Thynne]...
- […] set Sallowes about the bedde, besprinkled with vineger and rose water.1564, William Bullein, A Dialogue Bothe Pleasaunte and Pietifull Wherein Is a Goodly Regimente against the Feuer Pestilence with a Consolacion and Comfort against Death, London: John Kingston, [p....

sallow meaning in Tamil, Bengali, Malayalam and Kannada

sallow in Malayalam

pallid, yellowish, jaundiced: മഞ്ഞളിച്ച, ഇളംമഞ്ഞനിറമായ, ഏകദേശം മഞ്ഞയായ, ആപീത, ഇളം മഞ്ഞനിറമുള്ള, പാണ്ഡുരം

sallow in Kannada

ನಸುಮಂಜಳು ಬಣ್ಣದ, ಕುತ್ತ ಹಿಡಿದ, ಹಳದಿ ಬಣ್ಣದ, ಕಂದುಹಳದಿ ಬಣ್ಣದ, ಪಾಂಡು ವರ್ಣದ

More languagesFewer languages

sallow in Persian: زرد zard

Examples of sallow in a sentence

Once a handsome face, with bright color, it was now sallow and deep-lined […]1876, George Eliot [pseudonym; Mary Ann Evans], chapter LXII, in Daniel Deronda, volume IV, Edinburgh; London: William Blackwood and Sons...
[…] there was something owl-like about the eyes, round which there was a sallow, hollow depression.1937, Virginia Woolf, chapter 1880, in The Years, New York: Harcourt, Brace, page 64:
She had sallow skin and myopic eyes, and none of the men had ever slept with her because none of the men had ever wanted to […]1961 November 10, Joseph Heller, “The Eternal City”, in Catch-22 […], New York, N.Y.: Simon and Schuster, →OCLC, page 433:
For more than a century after the scandal of 1865, artists and historians wrestled with Olympia’s sallow skin, the bracelet on her right forearm, the orchid in her upswept red hair.2023 September 9, Jason Farago, “The 19th Century’s Most Scandalous Painting Comes to New York”, in The New York Times:

All 24 example sentences with sallow

Synonyms of sallow

goat willow

Forms of sallow

Adjective
comparative	sallower
superlative	sallowest
alternative form (obsolete)	salley
Verb
third-person singular present	sallows
present participle	sallowing
past participle	sallowed
past	sallowed
Noun
plural	sallows

Origin of sallow

From Middle English salowe, from Old English salu, from Proto-West Germanic *salu, from Proto-Germanic *salwaz, from Proto-Indo-European *selH-. See also Dutch zaluw, dialectal German sal; also Irish salach (“dirty”), Welsh halog, Latin salīva, Russian соло́вый (solóvyj, “cream-colored”), and - through Frankish - French sale.

From Middle English salow, salwe, from Old English sealh, from Proto-West Germanic *salh, from Proto-Germanic *salhaz, masculine variant of *salhō, *salhijǭ, from Proto-Indo-European *sh₂lk-, *sh₂lik-. See also Low German Sal, Saal; Swedish sälg; also Welsh helyg, Latin salix (and also a doublet of the thence derived English borrowing salix) probably originally a borrowing from some other language.

Words formed from sallow

Phrases with sallow

sallow kittens

Words that rhyme with sallow

Questions about sallow

What does sallow mean?: Sallow means of a sickly pale colour.
What is sallow in Tamil?: Sallow in Tamil is சலோமரம். See Sallow meaning in Tamil.
How do you use sallow in a sentence?: Once a handsome face, with bright color, it was now sallow and deep-lined […]
What part of speech is sallow?: Sallow can be an adjective, a verb or a noun.
How do you pronounce sallow?: Sallow is pronounced /ˈsæloʊ/ (US).

Words near sallow in the dictionary

Adapted from Wiktionary: sallow (page history and authors); sallow (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); sallow (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); sallow (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license); sallow (Kannada Wiktionary) (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: 2026-09-02

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

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