shadowy

Etymology

It is formed from English shadow + -y.^[2][3][4][5] In Middle English it was shadwī, also shadewi,^[6][3] formed on shadwe (“shadow”);^[6][5] the MED and Etymonline compare Old English sceadwig (“shady”).^[6][3] The noun is from Old English sceaduwe, the oblique form of sceadu, the source of shade.^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Unsubstantial, fleeting, unreal: 1374, in Chaucer's translation of Boethius.^[2][7] Etymonline dates the word to the late 14th century, both as "full of shadows, shaded" and as "transitory, fleeting".^[3]

Semantic evolution

Both main senses go back to Middle English: "resembling a shadow, unsubstantial" from 1374, and "full of shade, protected from the sun" from 1398, in Trevisa; the Wycliffite Bible of about 1382 already has a shadewi place in a vyneȝerde.^[2][6] Later senses grew out of the first: "spectral, ghostly" (1681), "faintly perceptible, indistinct" (1797, in Ann Radcliffe),^[2][3] and "casting shade" (1607).^[2] A 17th-century sense, "being a faint image of something; symbolic", used by Milton, died out by 1726.^[2] Johnson (1755) gave "full of shade; gloomy" first.^[8] The sense "mysterious, secretive", as of a figure of the underworld, is in modern dictionaries.^[9]

Timeline

• 1374 – unsubstantial, fleeting, unreal.^[2]
• c. 1382 – shaded, in the Wycliffite Bible.^[6]
• 1398 – full of shade, protected from the sun.^[2]
• 1555 – screened from view, remote (obsolete by 1616).^[2]
• 1607 – casting a shadow.^[2]
• 1642 – being a faint image; symbolic (obsolete by 1726).^[2]
• 1681 – spectral, ghostly.^[2]
• 1797 – faintly perceptible, indistinct.^[2][3]
• 1840 – wrapped in shadow.^[2]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Full of shadows; dark or shady: a shadowy alley behind the station.^[9][2]
2. Faint, dim or vague, like a shadow: shadowy shapes in the fog.^[9][5][2]
3. Not real or substantial; fleeting or imaginary.^[9][5][2]
4. Mysterious and secretive, little known: a shadowy group of financiers.^[9]

Word family

• shadowily
• shadowiness

Related words

• shadow
• shade
• shady

References

1. ^ a b 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 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. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b c d Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
6. ^ a b c d e Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
7. ^ Benson, Larry D., Glossarial Concordance to Middle English (Chaucer, Gower), Johns Hopkins University, github.com/jhu-digital-manuscripts/gcme
8. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
9. ^ a b c d e Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins