grisaille

English

Etymology

Unadapted borrowing from French grisaille.

Pronunciation

• Rhymes: -eɪl

Noun

grisaille (countable and uncountable, plural grisailles)

1. (art) In painting, a method of working which employs only varying values of gray to create form. Often a preliminary step in a fully colored painting.
   • 1982, Meredith P. Lillich, Studies in Cistercian art and architecture, page 134:

     Very pertinent relationships between these grisailles of the vegetal type and Islamic transennas have been established by Eva Frodl-Kraft, between that of Obazine with palmettes enchâssées, and a transenna from the Umayyad castle of Qasr-el Heir al Gharbi (about 727-750), today reconstructed at the National Museum in Damascus, and with a plaque, probably of Syrian origin, reused over a tomb in San Marco in Venice.

2. A stained-glass window in this style.

French

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ɡʁi.zaj/

Etymology 1

From gris +‎ -aille.

Noun

grisaille f (plural grisailles)

1. grisaille
2. gloom (gloomy weather)

Descendants

• → Catalan: grisalla
• → English: grisaille
• → Italian: grisaglia
• → Portuguese: grisalho
• → Spanish: grisalla

Etymology 2

Verb

grisaille

1. inflection of grisailler:
   1. first/third-person singular present indicative/subjunctive
   2. second-person singular imperative

Further reading

• “grisaille”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

Italian

Etymology

Unadapted borrowing from French grisaille.

Noun

grisaille f (invariable)

1. Alternative form of grisaglia

Anagrams

• sigillare, sigillerà