a. [f. L. cinere-us ash-colored (f. ciner-em ashes) + -OUS.]
1. Of an ashy hue, ash-colored, ashen-gray; spec. in names of birds having ash-colored feathers, as the cinereous crow, cinereous eagle, etc.
1661. Lovell, Hist. Anim. & Min., Introd. [The] partrig, grecian, reddish, cinereous, white, and damascen.
1768. Pennant, Penguins, in Phil. Trans., LVIII. 92. The whole back is of a very deep cinereous colour, almost dusky.
1796. Morse, Amer. Geog., I. 142. Cinereous crows … brave the severest winter.
1813. Bingley, Anim. Biog. (ed. 4), II. 71. The great or cinereous shrike.
1865. Gosse, Land & Sea, 14. Gay with the purple bloom of the cinereous heath.
2. Of the nature of ashes.
1811. Pinkerton, Petral., II. 455. Round cinereous bodies.
1831. Carlyle, Sart. Res., III. vii. She must first burn-out, and lie as a dead cinereous heap.
¶ catachr. ? Baked to a cinder, over-cooked.
1807. Edin. Rev., X. 333. This semi-sanguineous partiality had given way to a taste for cinereous … meats.
