adjective
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of, relating to, or resembling flax
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of a soft yellow colour
flaxen hair
Etymology
Origin of flaxen
Explanation
Use the adjective flaxen to describe things that are a pale golden-yellow color, like your brother's flaxen hair or flaxen wheat fields glowing in the summer sun. There's a literary history of using flaxen for a young girl's blonde hair that dates back at least as far as the 1500s. This word literally means "made of flax" or "the color of flax." Flax is a plant used to make a linen-like material also called flax, and flaxen originally described things made of this fabric. Today it's mainly used for hair or horses — the flaxen gene causes chestnut-colored horses to have blond tails.
Vocabulary lists containing flaxen
The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark
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The Downstairs Girl
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The Time Machine
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
A soft-faced teenage boy with flaxen hair playing the upright piano while a small orbit of youth-group girls gathered nearby.
From Salon • Mar. 15, 2026
He has the mighty flaxen hair of the Norse God of Thunder.
From Golf Digest • Oct. 30, 2018
The hardworking Nassella tenuissima’s upright green tufts turn to flaxen cascades perfect for softening up stone paths.
From The Wall Street Journal • Oct. 5, 2018
Her flaxen hair was trimmed and bagged, her toenails clipped and kept, her bodily fluids collected.
From Washington Post • Dec. 14, 2017
When his bowels were empty, Tyrion slipped on a bedrobe and roughed bis thin flaxen hair with his fingers, all the more to look as if he had wakened from sleep.
From "A Clash of Kings" by George R.R. Martin
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
