teal

CEFRB1

/tiːl/

noun · adjective

Türkçe translations

Translating…

In plain English

  1. 01

    noun

    A small duck with a blue-green head.

  2. 02

    adjective

    A dark blue-green color.

Examples

  • I'm in love with that teal gemstone.

  • Nyle is a teal monkey with brown eyes and mint highlights.

At a glance

Sits at B1 on the CEFR scale

Senses
5
Parts of speech
2
Citations
3

Also pronounced

  • [tiːɫ]
  • /til/

Deep Dive

noun

Extra meanings

  1. A dark, somewhat bluish-green colour; a dark cyan.

  2. A teal independent.

  3. Any of various small freshwater ducks of the genus Anas that are brightly coloured and have short necks.

More examples

In context

  • "Is this green?" "It's more of a teal."

  • Concerns of a targeted dirty tricks campaign targeting “teal” independents has prompted the Australian Electoral Commission to bring in its electoral integrity assurance taskforce as pre-polling opens.

  • In a bid to defend their inner-city seats, the Liberal Party has moved towards the environmental and progressive left in what can be described as a “teal strategy” that blurs the lines between the Liberals and the Greens.

Quick test

Two questions on this entry. Nothing is scored.

Question 1 · Quick check

The walls were painted a shade of blank, which combines blue and green.

Practise this properly in the app, where the word comes back before you forget it.

Nearby

Origin

noun

From Middle English tele, probably from an unrecorded Old English *tǣle, cognate with West Frisian tjilling (“teal”), Middle Dutch teling (“teal”) (modern Dutch taling), Middle Low German telink, from Proto-Germanic *tailijaz, of unknown ultimate origin, with no cognates outside of Germanic. As the name of a shade of dark greenish-blue like the color patterns on the fowl's head and wings, it is attested from 1923. The Australian political sense derives from the colour teal being intermediate between green (signifying environmentalism) and blue (signifying the conservative Australian Liberal Party).