teal

English

English Wikipedia has an article on:

teal

Wikipedia

Alternative forms

• teale (obsolete)

Etymology

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).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /tiːl/,

• Audio (Southern England)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -iːl
• Homophone: tiel

Noun

teal (countable and uncountable, plural teals)

1. (countable) Any of various small freshwater ducks of the genus Anas that are brightly coloured and have short necks.
2. (countable, uncountable) A dark, somewhat bluish-green colour; a dark cyan.

   teal:  

3. (countable, Australia, politics, chiefly attributive) A teal independent.
   • 2021 September 21, Kurt Wallace, “Navigating the great dividing voter range”, in IPA Today‎, Institute of Public Affairs:

     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.

   • 2022 May 9, “AEC mobilises taskforce to investigate corflute damage”, in Sydney Morning Herald, page 10:

     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.

   • 2022 September 26, “Teals, Greens list watchdog demands”, in The Canberra Times, page 6:

     Ms Haines is a strong proponent of this, and many of the teal cross benchers support her approach to appointing a whistleblower protection commissioner.

Derived terms

Translations

Adjective

teal (comparative more teal, superlative most teal)

1. Having a bluish-green colour.

Translations

See also

• (blues) blue; Alice blue, aqua, aquamarine, azure, baby blue, beryl, bice, bice blue, blue green, blue violet, blueberry, cadet blue, Cambridge blue, cerulean, cobalt blue, Copenhagen blue, cornflower, cornflower blue, cyan, dark blue, Dodger blue, duck-egg blue, eggshell blue, electric blue, gentian blue, ice blue, lapis lazuli, light blue, lovat, mazarine, midnight blue, navy, Nile blue, Oxford blue, peacock blue, petrol blue, powder blue, Prussian blue, robin's-egg blue, royal blue, sapphire, saxe blue, slate blue, sky blue, teal, turquoise, ultramarine, Wedgwood blue, zaffre ^{(Category: en:Blues)}

See also

• (etymologically unrelated) teal deer

Further reading

• “Teal, spicy cough and bachelor’s handbag: the contenders for Macquarie Dictionary’s 2022 word of the year” by Natasha May (2022-11-21), published in The Guardian.

Anagrams

• EATL, ETLA, Elta, LATE, et al, et al., late, leat, tael, tale, tela