[f. YELLOW a.]
1. intr. To become yellow, turn yellow.
a. 1050. Liber Scintill., xxviii. (1889), 105. Na beheald þu win þænne hit ʓeoluwað [L. flauescit].
1821. Clare, Vill. Minstr., II. 157. Ash or maple ’neath thy colour yellows.
1851. Mayne Reid, Scalp Hunters, xxxviii. The peak [of the temple] is yellowing downward [in the sunlight].
1868. Jrnl. R. Agric. Soc., Ser. II. IV. II. 425. In one part of the field the oats ‘yellow off.’
1888. Rider Haggard, Col. Quaritch, xxi. Their foliage yellowing to its fall, rose the giant oaks.
1902. Cutcliffe Hyne, Thompson’s Progr., vii. 184. When the wick yellowed out into flame, there was displayed a cubical, irregular cave.
2. trans. To make or render yellow; to impart a yellow color to.
1598. Sylvester, Du Bartas, II. i. III. Furies, 457. Her fiery poyson, yellowing all without.
c. 1600. Shaks., Sonn., xvii. My papers (yellowed with their age).
1743. Francis, trans. Hor., Odes, I. xxxi. 6. The swelling Grain, That yellows o’er Sardinia’s Plain.
1805. Wordsw., Prelude, V. 560. While the morning light Was yellowing the hill tops.
1863. Geo. Eliot, Romola, v. The vellum is yellowed in these thirteen years.
1885. Meredith, Diana, iv. On that fine spring morning, when … cowslips yellowed the meadow-flats.
1907. J. A. Hodges, Elem. Photogr. (ed. 6), 25. Some modern lenses … become … yellowed by exposure to strong light.
b. spec. in pin-manufacture: see quot.
1839. Ure, Dict. Arts, etc. 956. Yellowing or cleaning the pins, is effected by boiling them for half an hour in sour beer, wine lees, or solution of tartar.
c. Naut. colloq. To make a ‘yellow admiral’ of (see YELLOW a. 1 e). Also transf. to retire (a person).
1747. in Mahan, Types Naval Off. (1902), 85. ‘I will not have Hawke “yellowed” [was the royal fiat].
1820. Lady Granville, Lett. (1894), I. 171. He … gave a droll description of himself as old and fairly yellowed out of the service.
1867. [see YELLOWING vbl. sb.1].
