SOOTY (sootier, sootiest)

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

Irregular inflected forms: sootier    , sootiest   

 Dictionary entry overview: What does sooty mean? 

• SOOTY (adjective)
  The adjective SOOTY has 2 senses:

1. of the blackest black; similar to the color of jet or coal

2. covered with or as if with soot

  Familiarity information: SOOTY used as an adjective is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• SOOTY (adjective)

Comparative: sootier   
Superlative: sootiest   

Sense 1

Meaning:

Of the blackest black; similar to the color of jet or coal

Synonyms:

coal-black; jet; jet-black; pitchy; sooty

Similar:

achromatic; neutral (having no hue)

Derivation:

soot (a black colloidal substance consisting wholly or principally of amorphous carbon and used to make pigments and ink)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Covered with or as if with soot

Context example:

a sooty chimney

Similar:

dirty; soiled; unclean (soiled or likely to soil with dirt or grime)

Derivation:

soot (a black colloidal substance consisting wholly or principally of amorphous carbon and used to make pigments and ink)

sootiness (the state of being dirty with soot)

 Context examples 

The first man I saw was of a meagre aspect, with sooty hands and face, his hair and beard long, ragged, and singed in several places.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

Mugridge’s face turned white under its sooty veneer, and when Wolf Larsen called for a rope and a couple of men, the miserable Cockney fled wildly out of the galley and dodged and ducked about the deck with the grinning crew in pursuit.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

The girls had gone home, when my name burst into bloom on Traddles's door; and the sharp boy looked, all day, as if he had never heard of Sophy, shut up in a back room, glancing down from her work into a sooty little strip of garden with a pump in it.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

To him Aylward narrated the good hap which had befallen them; but the smith, when his eyes lit upon the relics, leaned up against his anvil and laughed, with his hand to his side, until the tears hopped down his sooty cheeks.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)