Fuscous
/ˈfʌskəs/noun
Dark, dusky, or brownish-gray in color.
Did you know?Fuscous comes from Latin fuscus, a word for dark or swarthy coloration, and it survived into English as a precise, almost occult-sounding color term used in biology and description.
Etymological Timeline
Proto-Indo-European
PIE
*dheus-
“to be dark, dim, or smoky”
Latin
Latin
fuscus
“dark, brown, dusky, swarthy”
Late Latin
Latin
fuscāre
“to darken”
16th-17th Century
English
fuscous
“dark, dusky, or swarthy in color”
Modern English
English
fuscous
“dark, brownish-gray, or dusky”
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