sooty
/ˈsʊti/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 2.51 in modern English
8
Scrabble Score
5
Letters
2
Syllables
4
Unique Chars
Meaning
Example Sentences
- "Fire of sooty coal."
- "The white faience façade, the glazed Doultonware Carrera marble, was made locally. And being glazed, it was impervious to London's sooty atmosphere, enabling easier cleaning."
- "The grisly legions that troop under the sooty flag of Acheron."
- "While thus reduced, his few surviving senses were at once called into acute activity by the appearance of a sooty little negro, who placed within his grasp a misshapen fold of dirty paper, […]"
- "Cæsar Pinkerton is a very respectable “gemman of colour;” […] [H]e aspired to have a wife. […] [H]e therefore paid a series of delicate attentions to Miss Feliciana Dusenberry, a sooty specimen of the fair sex."
- "And, though I've laughed at your expense, / O sister of the sooty hue, / No man who has a heart and sense / Would do one deed to injure you."
Etymology
From Middle English sooty, soty, equivalent to soot + -y. Probably influenced by similar Middle English suti (“dirty, filthy”), derived from the same root as Old English besūtian (“to befoul”).
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: sooty