Meanings
- not comparableHaving irises of a specified colour or kind.
He saw the white face and large-irised blue eyes some six inches from his own.
1973, Barry Unsworth, Mooncranker’s Gift, New York: Norton, published 1996, Part 3, Chapter 3, p. 1743 more examples
Her eyes were gray-irised, and of that mould that seems to have belonged to the orbs of all the famous queens of hearts.
1904 November, O. Henry [pseudonym; William Sydney Porter], Cabbages and Kings, New York, N.Y.: McClure, Phillips & Co., page 78The butler, a dark stout Dravidian with liquid yellow-irised eyes like those of a dog, brought the brandy on a brass tray.
1934 October, George Orwell [pseudonym; Eric Arthur Blair], chapter 2, in Burmese Days, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers, Publishers, →OCLCeyes also small, yet full-irised and thus like brown pellets under eyebrows low and thick
1947, William Sansom, “Various Temptations”, in Charles H. Bohner, editor, Short Fiction, 3rd edition, Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, published 1994, page 893 - datedliterarynot comparableShining with colours like those of the rainbow.
O for but a moment Of that old endowment— Light to gaily See thy daily Irisèd embowment!
1898, Thomas Hardy, “To Outer Nature”, in Wessex Poems and Other Verses, Toronto: George N. Morang, published 1899, page 1503 more examples
two parhelia, irised and very bright; but their centres were nearly of the same color, as the true sun
1818, Parker Cleaveland, “Description of several Halos and Parhelia, observed at Brunswick, Maine”, in Memoirs of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Volume 4, Part 1, p. 121the wreaths of fitful vapour gliding through groves of pine, and irised around the pillars of waterfalls
1856, John Ruskin, chapter 5, in Modern Painters […], volume IV, London: Smith, Elder and Co., […], →OCLC, part V (Of Mountain Beauty), page 81[…] at rare intervals, when the sun broke forth wholly free, the glacier was seen from shore to shore with a bright array of encompassing mountains partly revealed, wearing the clouds as garments, while the prairie bloomed and sparkled with irised light from myriads of washed crystals.
1909, John Muir, Stickeen,, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, page 34Synonyms: iridescent
- not comparableobsoletechemistryExhibiting the prismatic colours.
Yellow and irised quartz also occurs in mica slat in Fitchburg.
1833, Edward Hitchcock, Report on the Geology, Mineralogy, Botany, and Zoology of Massachusetts, Amherst: J.S. and C. Adams, page 3441 more example
Heat decomposes this ammoniacal sulphure: in a certain space of time, a great many small irised needles, a line or two in length, are formed in it: they appear to be concrete ammoniacal sulphure in crystals.
1790, Antoine-François de Fourcroy, translated by William Nicholson, Elements of Natural History and Chemistry, London: C. Elliot and T. Kay, Part 2, Chapter 4, p. 143Synonyms: irisated
- participlepastsimple past and past participle of iris
Synonyms & antonyms
adjectiveShining with colours like those of the rainbow.
adjectiveExhibiting the prismatic colours.
Origin
- Frenchirisé
- Englishirised
From iris + -ed; as a synonym of iridescent and irisated, perhaps a calque of French irisé.
More words from French
Full word history & related roots →Rhymes & wordplay
Rhymes with irised
All rhymes →Cite this entry
irised. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/irised
“irised.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/irised. Accessed November 3, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “irised,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/irised.
Source: irised on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.