irised

English

Etymology

From iris +‎ -ed; as a synonym of iridescent and irisated, perhaps a calque of French irisé.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈaɪ.ɹɪst/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -aɪɹɪst

Adjective

irised (not comparable)

1. (of eyes) Having irises of a specified colour or kind.
   • 1904 November, O. Henry [pseudonym; William Sydney Porter], Cabbages and Kings, New York, N.Y.: McClure, Phillips & Co., page 78:

     Her eyes were gray-irised, and of that mould that seems to have belonged to the orbs of all the famous queens of hearts.

   • 1934 October, George Orwell [pseudonym; Eric Arthur Blair], chapter 2, in Burmese Days, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers, Publishers, →OCLC:

     The butler, a dark stout Dravidian with liquid yellow-irised eyes like those of a dog, brought the brandy on a brass tray.

   • 1947, William Sansom, “Various Temptations”, in Charles H. Bohner, editor, Short Fiction‎^[3], 3rd edition, Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, published 1994, page 893:

     eyes also small, yet full-irised and thus like brown pellets under eyebrows low and thick

   • 1973, Barry Unsworth, Mooncranker’s Gift‎^[4], New York: Norton, published 1996, Part 3, Chapter 3, p. 174:

     He saw the white face and large-irised blue eyes some six inches from his own.

2. (dated, literary) Shining with colours like those of the rainbow.

   Synonym: iridescent

   • 1818, Parker Cleaveland, “Description of several Halos and Parhelia, observed at Brunswick, Maine”, in Memoirs of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences‎^[5], Volume 4, Part 1, p. 121:

     two parhelia, irised and very bright; but their centres were nearly of the same color, as the true sun

   • 1856, John Ruskin, chapter 5, in Modern Painters […], volume IV, London: Smith, Elder and Co., […], →OCLC, part V (Of Mountain Beauty), page 81:

     the wreaths of fitful vapour gliding through groves of pine, and irised around the pillars of waterfalls

   • 1898, Thomas Hardy, “To Outer Nature”, in Wessex Poems and Other Verses‎^[6], Toronto: George N. Morang, published 1899, page 150:

     O for but a moment
     Of that old endowment—
     Light to gaily
     See thy daily
     Irisèd embowment!

   • 1909, John Muir, Stickeen,‎^[7], Boston: Houghton Mifflin, page 34:

     […] at rare intervals, when the sun broke forth wholly free, the glacier was seen from shore to shore with a bright array of encompassing mountains partly revealed, wearing the clouds as garments, while the prairie bloomed and sparkled with irised light from myriads of washed crystals.

3. (mineralogy, chemistry, obsolete) Exhibiting the prismatic colours.

   Synonym: irisated

   • 1790, Antoine-François de Fourcroy, translated by William Nicholson, Elements of Natural History and Chemistry‎^[8], London: C. Elliot and T. Kay, Part 2, Chapter 4, p. 143:

     Heat decomposes this ammoniacal sulphure: in a certain space of time, a great many small irised needles, a line or two in length, are formed in it: they appear to be concrete ammoniacal sulphure in crystals.

   • 1833, Edward Hitchcock, Report on the Geology, Mineralogy, Botany, and Zoology of Massachusetts‎^[9], Amherst: J.S. and C. Adams, page 344:

     Yellow and irised quartz also occurs in mica slat in Fitchburg.

Verb

irised

1. simple past and past participle of iris

Anagrams

• irides