teal

Estimated CEFR level: C2 — Proficiency

Estimated from word frequency; not an official CEFR classification.

Definition

  1. noun a blue-green color or pigment
  2. noun any of various small short-necked dabbling river ducks of Europe and America
  3. adjective of a bluish shade of green

Etymology

From Middle English tele, probably from an unrecorded Old English *tǣle, cognate with West Frisian tjilling (“teal”), Middle Dutch teling (“teal”) (modern Dutch taling), Middle Low German telink, from Proto-Germanic *tailijaz, of unknown ultimate origin, with no cognates outside of Germanic. As the name of a shade of dark greenish-blue like the color patterns on the fowl's head and wings, it is attested from 1923. The Australian political sense derives from the colour teal being intermediate between green (signifying environmentalism) and blue (signifying the conservative Australian Liberal Party).

In classic literature

Synonyms

bluish green, blue green

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