teal

• teale (obsolete)

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).

• IPA^(key): /tiːl/, [tiːɫ]

• Audio (Southern England)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -iːl
• Homophone: tiel

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 and uncountable) A dark, somewhat bluish-green colour; a dark cyan.

   teal:  

3. (countable, Australia, politics, chiefly attributive) A teal independent, a politician who espouses environmentally and socially progressive but economically conservative ideas, especially in the context of a group of independent candidates who ran in the 2022 federal election.
   • 2021 September 21, Kurt Wallace, “Navigating the great dividing voter range”, in IPA Today‎, Institute of Public Affairs:

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

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

teal (comparative more teal, superlative most teal)

1. Having a bluish-green colour

• (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)}

• “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.

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