pastel
n. C / Un. a soft, pale color or a special crayon made of powdered paint and chalk.
n. a pigment stick consisting of powdered color and a binder; also refers to a pale, delicate tint of a color.
She prefers to wear soft pastels in the spring.
The artist used a blue pastel to capture the soft light of the morning sky on the canvas.
While oil paints offer rich saturation, the use of pastel allows for a velvety texture and a luminous quality that is difficult to replicate with other media.
Borrowed from French pastel, from Italian pastello (“pastel”), from Medieval Latin pastellum (“dough, paste”), from Latin pasta (“dough, paste”), ultimately from Ancient Greek πάστη (pástē, “dough, paste”). Doublet of pastegh, pastiglia, pastila, pastilla, and pastille.
Borrowed from Spanish pastel, ultimately the same word as Etymology 1.
Countable when referring to the physical drawing tool or a specific shade; uncountable when referring to the medium or style in general.