a. Forms: see YELLOW a. [f. YELLOW a. + -ISH1.] Somewhat yellow; of a color inclining or approaching to yellow; having a tinge of yellow.
1379. Glouc. Cath. MS., 19, No. I. I. iv. lf. 11. It ys evirmare whityssh or ȝolowyssh.
1398. Trevisa, Barth. De P. R., XIII. xxi. (Bodl. MS.). Nowe he [sc. the sea] is whitissche and ȝelowissche now white & clere.
1576. Turberv., Venerie, 184. The Badgerdwhelpes haue theyr nose, their throte and their eares yellowyshe.
1622. Peacham, Compl. Gentl., xii. 111. Linseede oyle will turne yeallowish.
1781. Pennant, Hist. Quadrup., I. 188. Yellowish monkey with a black face.
1823. Scott, Quentin D., Introd. His clean silk stockings, washed till their tint had become yellowish.
1884. A. Lang, in Century Mag., Jan., 323. Stone walls can never seem so squalid and skimped as the London houses of dirty, yellowish brick.
b. Qualifying adjs. or sbs. of color.
1615. G. Sandys, Trav., 68. They paint their nailes with a yellowish red.
1688. Lond. Gaz., No. 2411/4. A yellowish bay Stone-horse.
1752. Hill, Hist. Anim., 499. The yellowish-grey Fringilla.
1816. Stephens, in Shaw, Gen. Zool., IX. II. 310. Yellowish-green Grosbeak.
1843. Portlock, Geol., 214. Miemite of a rich yellowish-green.
1882. Garden, 12 Aug., 145/3. Lovely yellow or yellowish scarlet tints.
c. Comb.
1693. Moxon, Mech. Exerc. (1703), 238. A yellowish coloured fat Earth.
1725. Bradley’s Fam. Dict., s.v. Goose, A goose … if yellowish footed and bill’d, [is] young.
1840. G. V. Ellis, Anat., 41. A thin, yellowish-looking band.
Hence † Yellowish v., to turn yellowish; Yellowishness, yellowish color or tinge.
1590. Barrough, Meth. Phisick, III. xxvi. (1639), 146. His tongue is *yellowished.
1547. Boorde, Brev. Health, lxxiii. An uryne that is yelow lyke the *yelowyshenes of an horne of a lanterne that is bryght.
1657. W. Rand, trans. Gassendi’s Life Peiresc, I. 196. A certain dark and obscure yellowishness [in a picture].
1663. Boyle, Exp. Hist. Colours, III. xxviii. Bruis’d Madder … being drench’d with the like Alcalizate Solution, exchang’d … its Yellowishness for a Redness.
