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In Oscar Wilde’s 1891 novel A Picture of Dorian Gray, Dorian’s unscrupulous friend Lord Henry Wotton impresses upon the young Dorian what the process of aging will do, saying "Time is jealous of you, and wars against your lilies and your roses. You will become sallow, and hollow-cheeked, and dull-eyed." Literature of the 19th century abounds with sallow people—Charles Dickens applied the word to characters in no fewer than 12 novels—but the word had been in use with the same meaning for centuries before that literary heyday. Its synonymous Old English forbear is salu, which shares an ancestor with an Old High German word meaning "murky" as well as with a Russian word meaning "yellowish gray."
Examples of sallow in a Sentence
Michael Schulman, New Yorker, 6 June 2025
Sleep deprivation—whether due to long work hours, insomnia, restless slumber, a crying baby, or a hella fun night out—can leave skin looking sallow and dull.
—Leah Prinzivalli, Allure, 14 Feb. 2025
Aimee Ortiz, New York Times, 7 Dec. 2023
An awkward, sallow, provincial, minor army officer, Napoleon, was irresistibly drawn to Joséphine, attracted by her proximity to the most powerful men in France.
—Anne Higonnet, Vogue, 17 Nov. 2023
See All Example Sentences for sallow
Cite this Entry
“Sallow.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/sallow. Accessed 3 Jul. 2025.
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