grisaille

Borrowed from French grisaille.

• Rhymes: -eɪl

grisaille (countable and uncountable, plural grisailles)

1. (art) In painting, a method of working which employs only varying values of gray to create form. Often a preliminary step in a fully colored painting.
   • 1982, Meredith P. Lillich, Studies in Cistercian art and architecture, page 134:

     Very pertinent relationships between these grisailles of the vegetal type and Islamic transennas have been established by Eva Frodl-Kraft, between that of Obazine with palmettes enchâssées, and a transenna from the Umayyad castle of Qasr-el Heir al Gharbi (about 727-750), today reconstructed at the National Museum in Damascus, and with a plaque, probably of Syrian origin, reused over a tomb in San Marco in Venice.

2. A stained-glass window in this style.

• IPA^(key): /ɡʁi.zaj/

gris +‎ -aille

grisaille f (plural grisailles)

1. grisaille
2. gloom (gloomy weather)

grisaille

1. first-person singular present indicative of grisailler
2. third-person singular present indicative of grisailler
3. first-person singular present subjunctive of grisailler
4. third-person singular present subjunctive of grisailler
5. second-person singular imperative of grisailler

• “grisaille” in le Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

Borrowing from French grisaille

grisaille f (invariable)

1. grisaille
2. Variant of grisaglia

• sigillare, sigillerà