hoary

Other forms of hoary

comparative or superlative

hoarier

comparative or superlative

hoariest

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about hoary

What does hoary mean?

hoary means "showing characteristics of age, especially having grey or white hair". That is the primary sense; the word has 3 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in hoary?

hoary has 2 syllables: hoa-ry. The stress falls on "hoa". In IPA it is /ˈhɔɹi/.

What is another word for hoary?

Close synonyms include grey, gray, grey-haired, gray-haired, grey-headed. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is hoary a common word?

hoary is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.