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Mellow vs Callow - What's the difference?

mellow | callow |

As adjectives the difference between mellow and callow

is that mellow is soft or tender by reason of ripeness; having a tender pulp while callow is (obsolete) bald.

As nouns the difference between mellow and callow

is that mellow is a relaxed mood while callow is a callow young bird.

As a verb mellow

is to make mellow; to relax or soften.

mellow

English

Adjective

(en-adj)
  • Soft or tender by reason of ripeness; having a tender pulp.
    • a mellow apple
  • Easily worked or penetrated; not hard or rigid.
    • a mellow soil
  • * Drayton
    • flowers of rank and mellow glebe
  • Not coarse, rough, or harsh; subdued, soft, rich, delicate; said of sound, color, flavor, style, etc.
  • * Wordsworth
    • the mellow horn
  • * Thomson
    • the mellow -tasted Burgundy
  • * Percival
    • The tender flush whose mellow stain imbues / Heaven with all freaks of light.
  • Well matured; softened by years; genial; jovial.
  • * Wordsworth
    • May health return to mellow age.
  • * Washington Irving
    • as merry and mellow an old bachelor as ever followed a hound
  • Relaxed; calm; easygoing; laid-back.
  • *{{quote-book, year=1963, author=(Margery Allingham)
    • , title=(The China Governess) , chapter=3 citation , passage=Here the stripped panelling was warmly gold and the pictures, mostly of the English school, were mellow and gentle in the afternoon light.}}
  • Warmed by liquor, slightly intoxicated; or, stoned, high.
    • (Addison)

    Derived terms

    * mellowness

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • A relaxed mood.
  • *
  • *

    • Verb

    (en verb)
  • To make mellow; to relax or soften.
    • (Shakespeare)
  • * J. C. Shairp
    • The fervour of early feeling is tempered and mellowed by the ripeness of age.
  • To become .

    • Derived terms

    * harshing my mellow (harsh one's mellow) * mellow out

    callow

    English

    Adjective

    (en-adj)
  • (obsolete) Bald.
  • Unfledged (of a young bird).
  • * Dryden
    • And in the leafy summit spy'd a nest, / Which, o'er the callow young, a sparrow pressed.
  • Immature, lacking in life experience.
    • Those three young men are particularly callow youths.
  • Lacking color or firmness (of some kinds of insects or other arthropods, such as spiders, just after ecdysis). Teneral.
  • Shallow or weak-willed.
  • Unburnt (of a brick)

    • Noun

  • A callow young bird.
  • A callow or teneral phase of an insect or other arthropod, typically shortly after ecdysis, while the skin still is hardening, the colours have not yet become stable, and as a rule, before the animal is able to move effectively.

    • Anagrams

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