beige

Pluralbeiges

1. 1
   nouncountable or uncountable

   A pale yellowish-gray color, like that of unbleached wool.

   The designer chose beige for the lobby to keep the space calm and neutral.

   Against the dark furniture, the beige of the curtains looked almost white.

   Note

   A color named for raw cloth. The word came into English straight from French with its spelling unchanged, and Old French bege meant the color of undyed wool or cotton. As a noun it works both ways: beige on its own names the color, while the plural beiges sorts its shades, as in a palette of warm beiges and grays.

2. 2
   adjective

   Of a pale yellowish-gray color, like that of unbleached wool.

   He repainted the office in a beige tone that felt warm but understated.

   The walls were beige, blending quietly with the wooden floors.

   Similardrab, colorless, bland, indistinct

   Note

   The adjective compares both ways: beiger and beigest sit alongside more beige and most beige. It can be purely descriptive, as with the beige suit in Delano Ames's Crime out of Mind (1956), but bland and drab are never far off. Michel Marriott's 2006 New York Times piece "When Beige Won't Do" calls cheap, interchangeable computers beige boxes, which is halfway to the "dull" meaning.

3. 3
   adjectivecolloquial

   Dull and unadventurous in a comfortable way, suggesting ordinary middle-class suburban life.

   Critics dismissed the album as beige, pleasant and safe but instantly forgettable.

   He worried that settling down in the suburbs would make his life hopelessly beige.

   Similarbland, tedious

   Oppositeexciting, adventurous

   Note

   Color turned verdict: safe, pleasant, forgettable. The superlative does much of the work, often in the pattern the beigest of, as in the beigest of states or the beigest parts of suburbia. Eric Asimov's 2013 column "A Beige Wine for a Beige Meal" plays on both meanings at once, naming chardonnay the beigest of wines. The usage is informal and works best in conversation or light writing.

4. 4
   noununcountable

   A woolen or mixed fabric used as material for dresses, also known as debeige.

   The dressmaker preferred beige for its durability and soft, even weave.

   Bolts of beige lined the shelves of the old draper's shop.

   Note

   Here the name has passed from the color to the cloth itself. That is a natural step, since the color word began as the shade of undyed wool. Debeige is the same fabric under another name. In a draper's or dressmaker's setting, a beige is a material rather than a hue, and beiges are kinds or lengths of that cloth.

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