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There comes a moment in every young crayon user’s life when they graduate from the 8-count (or 16-count, perhaps) box to the treasure trove of 64 glorious sticks of differently colored wax, when they discover that there isn’t just one brown or orange or blue, that when it comes to colors, the sky’s the limit! Such a moment is often the first encounter people have with the word cerulean, a word that slips sibilantly off the tongue like a balmy ocean breeze. Like azure, cerulean describes things whose blue color resembles that of a clear sky; it’s often used in literature (especially travel writing) to paint an enticing image of an even more enticing vista, as in “the cerulean waters of a tropical lagoon.” While azure is thought to hail from the Persian word lāzhuward, with the same meaning, cerulean comes from the Latin adjective caeruleus, meaning “dark blue.” That word most likely comes from caelum, meaning “sky.”
Examples of cerulean in a Sentence
Chris Schalkx, Robb Report, 28 Aug. 2025
Perhaps an ode to the cerulean sweater that prompted Priestly's long-winded rant in the original film?
—Taijuan Moorman, USA Today, 28 Aug. 2025
In Kerala, two brooding boys lie in front of a placid, cerulean lake, with a snowcapped mountain range in the distance.
—M. Z. Adnan, New Yorker, 23 Aug. 2025
The lengthy, merciless caption is basically the rock equivalent of Miranda Priestly’s cerulean sweater takedown.
—Angie Martoccio, Rolling Stone, 22 Aug. 2025
See All Example Sentences for cerulean
Cite this Entry
“Cerulean.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/cerulean. Accessed 10 Sep. 2025.
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cerulean
adjective
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