scarious

English

Alternative forms

Etymology

French scarieux. Compare scary.

Adjective

scarious (comparative more scarious, superlative most scarious)

  1. (botany) thin, dry, membranous, and not green
    • 1838, John Torrey and Asa Gray, "A Flora of North America", p.422:
      A polymorphous plant, with larger (frequently three lines in diameter), more globose and racemose heads, and more scarious involucres than any form of A. vulgaris.
  2. thin, dry, membranous
    • 1979, Cormac McCarthy, Suttree, Random House, p.169:
      Gray head goggling fowlwise on a scarious neck, turning.
  3. (zoology) scaly, scurfy

Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.
(See the entry for scarious in
Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.)

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