ashy

Etymology

From Middle English asshy, asky, equivalent to ash + -y.

adj

1. Resembling ashes (especially in colour); (of a person’s complexion) unusually pale as a result of strong emotion, illness, etc.
   Beyond that black clot the sea lay, pale with last ashy gleam of day. 1968, Ursula K. Le Guin, chapter 7, in A Wizard of Earthsea, page 123
2. Comprising, containing, or covered with ash.
   He lit the paper until it burned to an ashy film. 1991, Edwidge Danticat, “A Wall of Fire Rising”, in Krik? Krak!, New York: Soho Press
3. (African-American Vernacular) Having dry or dead skin (therefore discolored).
   It was summer and his pants were short, so the pickle juice made clean streams down his ashy legs[…] 1969, Maya Angelou, chapter 4, in I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, New York: Random House, page 22
   After passing it under her runny nose, a skinny chalk-colored girl raised a hand so disgustingly ashy, so white and dry-skinned, that it could only be black. 2015, Paul Beatty, chapter 11, in The Sellout, New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, page 159