Sandy means covered in tiny grains of worn rock, or that colour. A sandy beach, sandy soil, sandy hair.
Sandy soil drains fast and holds neither water nor nutrients, which makes it easy to dig and hard to grow in — the opposite problem to clay. Of hair it means a light reddish blond. Note sand, and that the word is Old English, formed exactly as it is now.
1adjectivesandyCovered in tiny grains of worn rock.
“We walked barefoot along the long sandy beach.”
2adjectivelightLight reddish blond, of hair.
“He was a tall boy with freckles and sandy hair.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
sandy is a quality of texture or colour.
Old English sandig is sand plus -y. Dutch zandig and German sandig are the same compound.
Old English
sandiġ — sandy
Middle English
sandi
English, today
sandy
From Middle English sandi, sondy, sandiȝ, from Old English sandiġ (“sandy”), equivalent to sand + -y. Cognate with Dutch zandig (“sandy”), German sandig (“sandy”), Swedish sandig (“sandy”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA