Metallic means metal-like - in look, in taste, or in sound. A car sprayed metallic silver, the taste of blood in your mouth, the clang of a spanner dropped on a concrete floor.
Metallic paint has tiny flecks in it that catch the light, which is why metallic blue has a depth that flat blue does not. A metallic taste is the coin-like one that comes with blood, with some medicines, and with food left too long in an open tin. Sounds get the word too: a metallic rattle from under the car, a metallic voice through a station speaker. Chemists use it plainly for anything belonging to the metals, as in metallic elements and metallic bonds. Keep it apart from metal itself: a metal door is made of metal, while a metallic door only looks or sounds as if it is.
1adjectivemetallicLooking or shining like metal.~26%
“The bike was painted metallic green.”
synonyms: shiny
2adjectivetasteTasting or smelling of metal.~2%
“The water from the old tap had a faint metallic taste.”
3adjectivesoundingSounding hard and ringing, like metal being struck.~10%
“A metallic clatter came from the kitchen.”
4adjectivebelongingMade of metal, or belonging to the metals.~62%
“Copper and zinc are metallic elements.”
Shares are an estimate: a language model read 19 sentences found in the wild and placed 19 of them on a sense — a count of our sample, not a measurement of English.
Metallic is metal with a Latin ending fitted to it. It comes from Latin metallicus, formed on metallum, 'metal', which Latin had borrowed from Ancient Greek metallon. English could have made do with metal-ish and kept the Roman version instead.
Ancient Greek
μέταλλον
Latin
metallicus
English, today
metallic
Built from
From Latin metallicus, from metallum (“metal”), from Ancient Greek μέταλλον. Equivalent to metal + -ic.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA