whitish

Everyday

Almost white, or a little bit white; pale in colour. tree →

In the lessons

Used in science descriptions, nature notes and stories when something is not pure white: whitish flowers, a whitish sky, a whitish powder in an experiment. It helps describe exactly what you see. Phrases: "whitish grey", "a whitish powder".

Examples

• The mushroom had a whitish cap. tree →
• A whitish powder was left after the water evaporated. tree →
• The sky was a whitish grey before the snow. tree →
• The caterpillar had whitish stripes. tree →
• His face went whitish with fear. tree →
• The rock had whitish lines of quartz in it. tree →
• There, in the warm litter above the melons, very cunningly hidden, he found twenty-five eggs, about the size of a bantam’s eggs, but with whitish skin instead of shell. tree →

Note

Adjective from "white" plus -ish (the e is dropped). The ending -ish means "a bit, rather", as in greenish, smallish, tallish. Also spelled "whiteish", but "whitish" is the usual spelling.