Word of the Day

: August 21, 2018

cerulean

adjective suh-ROO-lee-un

What It Means

: resembling the blue of the sky

cerulean in Context

"The images in Nicolas Party's paintings are simple, vivid, inexplicably funny, and profoundly odd. He paints the face of a man in a brown hat with a large snail on top, against a background of cerulean blue." — Dodie Kazanjian, Vogue, June 2018

"The new oceanfront pool is scheduled to debut by summer's end…; complete with cabanas and a second tiki bar serving food all day, it will bring guests even closer to the cerulean Atlantic." — Alexandra Kirkman, Forbes, 2 July 2018

Did You Know?

Cerulean comes from the Latin word caeruleus, which means "dark blue" and is most likely from caelum, the Latin word for "sky." An artist rendering a sky of blue in oils or watercolors might choose a tube of cerulean blue pigment. Birdwatchers in the eastern U.S. might look skyward and see a cerulean warbler (Dendroica cerulea). Cerulean is not the only color name that's closely associated with the sky. Azure (which ultimately comes from a Persian word for "lapis lazuli," a rich blue stone) describes the color of a cloudless sky and can even be a noun meaning "the unclouded sky."