hoary

Etymology

It is formed from English hoar + -y, a late formation that the OED compares with dusky and haughty.^[2][3][4][5] Its base is from Old English hār (“grey, venerable, old”),^[3][4][2] cognate with Old Saxon hēr and Old High German hēr (“old”), whence German hehr (“august, stately”), and with Old Norse hárr (“grey, old”),^[4][2][3] all from Proto-Germanic *hairaz.^[3][4] Etymonline traces this to Proto-Indo-European *kei-, a source of colour adjectives,^[3] and the OED notes that it is usually referred to a root meaning "to shine".^[2][5] Wiktionary suggests that a Middle English adjective may lie behind Middle English horilocket (“having hoary locks”), though that word may simply be built on hor (“hoar”).^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Grey or white with age, of the hair, head or beard; also mouldy or musty: both senses in 1530, in Palsgrave's Lesclarcissement, in the spelling hoory.^[2][4][6] Etymonline dates the adjective to the 1510s and Dictionary.com to 1520–30,^[3][7] while the Shorter Oxford puts it in late Middle English.^[5]

Semantic evolution

From the colour of old hair the word spread to the person with such hair, by 1580,^[2] and then to anything venerable from age, in Dekker in 1609.^[2] Etymonline dates this sense to about 1600.^[3] It was used of plain greyish white from 1579, in Spenser,^[2] especially of frost.^[5][8] From the end of the 16th century naturalists applied it to plants and insects covered with short whitish hairs; in 1781, in Pennant, it entered the names of species.^[2] Both the Shorter Oxford and Merriam-Webster Unabridged also record the word for what is old and stale.^[5][6] Johnson (1755) listed "white", "white or grey with age", "white with frost" and "mouldy; mossy; rusty",^[8] and the OED's last record of the last of these is from 1693,^[2] though the English Dialect Dictionary still records "mouldy" in Pembrokeshire.^[9]

Timeline

• 1530 – of hair, grey or white with age; also mouldy, musty (obsolete after 1693).^[2][10]
• 1579 – of colour, grey or greyish white.^[2]
• 1580 – of a person, grey-haired.^[2]
• 1597 – covered with short white hairs, of a plant or insect.^[2]
• 1609 – ancient, venerable.^[2]
• 1781 – in the names of species.^[2]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Grey or white with age, of hair or a beard: the old priest's hoary beard.^[6][2][11]
2. Having grey or white hair.^[11][6][2]
3. Grey or greyish white in colour.^[11][2][6]
4. Very old, especially in a way that commands respect; venerable: the hoary ramparts of the town.^[11][6][2]
5. So old and familiar as to be stale or trite: a comedian relying on hoary one-liners.^[6][5]
6. (botany, zoology) Covered with short, dense, whitish hairs; canescent.^[2][5][6]
7. (obsolete, 1530–1693) Mouldy or musty.^[2][5][8]

Word family

• hoarily
• hoariness
• unhoary
• hoary marmot

Related words

• hoar
• hoarfrost

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d e Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
5. ^ a b c d e f g h Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c d e f g h Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
7. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
8. ^ a b c Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
9. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
10. ^ Kay, Christian; Roberts, Jane; Samuels, Michael; Wotherspoon, Irené, eds. (2009), Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford: Oxford University Press; online edition (2024)
11. ^ a b c d Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins