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color

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary
See also:colôr

English

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EnglishWikipediahas an article on:
Wikipedia

Alternative forms

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Etymology

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FromMiddle Englishcolour,color,borrowed fromAnglo-Normancolur,fromOld Frenchcolour,color,fromLatincolor.

DisplacedEnglishblee,Middle Englishblee(“color”),fromOld Englishblēo.Also partially replacedOld Englishhīew(“color”)and its descendants (Englishhue), which is less often used in this sense.Doubletofcouleur.

The spellingcolorwas popularized in modern American English byNoah Webster,to match the spelling of the word's Latin etymon,and make all American spellings of the derivatives consistent (colorimeter,coloration,colorize,colorless,etc).

Pronunciation

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Noun

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color(countableanduncountable,pluralcolors)(American spelling)(Canadian spelling, rare)

  1. (uncountable)The spectral composition of visible light.
    Humans and birds can perceivecolor.
    Synonym:(archaic)blee
  2. A subset thereof:
    1. (countable)A particular set of visible spectral compositions, perceived or named as a class.
      Most languages have names for thecolorsblack, white, red, and green.
      Synonyms:hue,(archaic)blee
      • 1918,W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell,chapter V, inThe Mirror and the Lamp,Indianapolis, Ind.:The Bobbs-Merrill Company,→OCLC:
        Here, in the transept and choir, where the service was being held, one was conscious every moment of an increasing brightness;coloursglowing vividly beneath the circular chandeliers, and the rows of small lights on the choristers' desks flashed and sparkled in front of the boys' faces, deep linen collars, and red neckbands.
    2. (uncountable)Hueas opposed toachromaticcolors (black, white and grays).
      The accident victim's face was white, drained of allcolor.
      Synonyms:hue,shade,(archaic)blee
    3. These hues as used incolor televisionor films, color photographs, etc (as opposed to the shades of grey used in black-and-white television).
      This film is broadcast incolor.Most people dream incolor,but some dream in black and white.
      Synonym:color television
    4. (heraldry)Any of the standard darktincturesused in acoat of arms,includingazure,gules,sable,andvert.
      Coordinate terms:metal,stain
  3. Apaint.
    The artist took out hercolorsand began work on a landscape.
  4. (uncountable)Human skin tone, especially as an indicator ofraceorethnicity.
    Colorhas been a sensitive issue in many societies.
    Synonyms:complexion,ethnicity,race
  5. (medicine)Skin color, noted as normal,jaundiced,cyanotic,flush,mottled,pale,orashenas part of theskin signsassessment.
  6. Aflushedappearance of blood in the face; redness of complexion.
    • 1864,Sir Henry Stewart Cunningham,Late Laurels,volumes1-2,page117:
      […]her very embarrassment wore a graceful air; her highcolourhad softened down to a warm, delicate tint; and her dress, which looked beautifully new and fresh, was in good taste, and showed her off to advantage.
  8. (figuratively)Richness of expression; detail or flavour that is likely to generate interest or enjoyment.
    colorcommentator,colorcommentary
    There is a great deal ofcolourin his writing.
    a bit of localcolor
    • 1914November,Louis Joseph Vance,“An Outsider[…]”,inMunsey’s Magazine,volume LIII, number II, New York, N.Y.:The Frank A[ndrew]Munsey Company,[…],published1915,→OCLC,chapter I (Anarchy),page377,column 2:
      Three chairs of the steamer type, all maimed, comprised the furniture of this roof-garden, with (by way of localcolor) on one of the copings a row of four red clay flower-pots filled with sun-baked dust[…]
    Could you give me somecolorwith regards to which products made up the mix of revenue for this quarter?
  9. Astandard,flag,orinsignia:
    1. (in theplural)Astandardorbanner.
      The loss of theircolorsdestroyed the regiment's morale.
      Synonyms:banner,standard
    2. (in theplural)The flag of a nation or team.
      Thecolorswere raised over the new territory.
      • 1856,“Treaty signed April 18, 1855; ratified April 5, 1856”,inTreaty of friendship and commerce between Great Britain and Siam,Bangkok: J. H. Chandler, page 7:
        The arrival of the British Consul at Bangkok shall not take place before the ratification of this Treaty, nor until ten vessels owned by British subjects, sailing under Britishcoloursand with British papers, shall have entered the port of Bangkok for purposes of trade, subsequent to the signing of this Treaty.
    3. (in theplural)Gang insignia.
      Both of the perpetrators were wearingcolors.
  10. (in theplural)An award for sporting achievement, particularly within a school or university.
    He was awardedcolorsfor his football.
  11. (military,in theplural)The morning ceremony of raising the flag.
  12. (physics)A property ofquarks,with three values called red, green, and blue, which they canexchangeby passinggluons;color charge.
  13. (finance,uncountable)Athird-ordermeasure ofderivativeprice sensitivity, expressed as the rate of change ofgammawith respect to time, or equivalently the rate of change ofcharmwith respect to changes in theunderlyingassetprice.
  14. (typography)The relativelightnessordarknessof a mass of written or printedtexton a page. (Seetype coloron Wikipedia.Wikipedia)
  15. (snooker)Any of the colored balls excluding thereds.
  16. Afrontorfacade;anostensibletruth actually false;pretext.
    • 2011,David Baldacci,The Collectors:
      At the far end of the continuum, Roger Seagraves collected personal items from people he'd murdered, or assassinated rather, since he'd done it under thecolorof serving his country.
  17. An appearance of right or authority;color of law.
    Undercolorof law, he managed to bilk taxpayers of millions of dollars.
    • 1882,The Ohio Law Journal,volume 2, page396:
      The only thing which this defendant is accused of doing is that he excluded this boy from the school, and he did it under thecolorof the statute relating to the subject, and did it because he was a colored boy.
    • 1770,“Parliamentary Privilege Act 1770”, inlegislation.gov.uk‎[1]:
      no such action, suit, or any other process or proceeding thereupon shall at any time be impeached, stayed, or delayed by or undercolouror pretence of any privilege of Parliament.
  18. (mining)Gold, particles of gold found whenprospecting.
    • 2013,Eleanor Catton,The Luminaries,London: Granta, published2014,→ISBN,page184:
      He smelted Wells’scolourbefore it was valued, and by the time anybody saw it, it had been poured into bars and stamped with the Reserve seal.

Usage notes

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The lateAnglo-Normancolour,which is the standard UK spelling, has been the usual spelling in Britain since the 14th century and was chosen byDr. Johnson'sDictionary of the English Language(1755) along with other Anglo-Norman spellings such asfavour,honour,etc. The Latin spellingcolorwas occasionally used from the 15th century onward, mainly due to Latin influence; it was lemmatized byWebster'sAmerican Dictionary of the English Language(1828), along withfavor,honor,etc., and is currently the standard US spelling.

In Canada,colouris preferred, butcoloris not unknown; in Australia,-ourendings are the standard, although-orendings had some currency in the past and are still sporadically found in some regions. In New Zealand and South Africa,-ourendings are the standard.

Synonyms

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Hypernyms

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  • (measure of derivative price sensitivity):Greeks(includes list of coordinate terms)

Hyponyms

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Derived terms

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The majority of these terms are either considered alternative forms of, or have alternative forms corresponding to,colour(the Commonwealth and Irish spelling).

Translations

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The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions atWiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
Translations to be checked

Adjective

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color(notcomparable)(American spelling)

  1. Conveying color, as opposed to shades of gray.
    Colortelevision and movies were considered a great improvement over black and white.

Translations

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Verb

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color(third-person singular simple presentcolors,present participlecoloring,simple past and past participlecolored)(American spelling)

  1. (transitive)To give something color.
    Synonyms:dye,paint,stain,shade,tinge,tint
    We couldcolorthe walls red.
    1. (transitive)To cause (a pipe, especially ameerschaum) to take on a brown or black color, by smoking.
  2. (intransitive)To apply colors to the areas within the boundaries of a line drawing using colored markers or crayons.
    Synonym:color in
    My kindergartener loves tocolor.
  3. (of a person or their face)To become red through increased blood flow.
    Synonym:blush
    Her facecoloredas she realized her mistake.
  4. To affect without completely changing.
    Synonyms:affect,influence
    That interpretation certainlycolorsmy perception of the book.
  6. (informal)To attribute a quality to; to portray (as).
    Synonym:call
    Colorme confused.
    They tried tocolourthe industrial unrest as a merely local matter.
  7. (mathematics,graph theory)Toassigncolors to theverticesof agraph(ortheregionsof amap) so that no two vertices connected by anedge(regions sharing a border) have thesamecolor.
    Can this graph be 2-colored?
    You cancolorany map with four colors.

Antonyms

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Hyponyms

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Derived terms

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Translations

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The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions atWiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
Translations to be checked

See also

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Colors/Colours in English(layout·text)
red orange yellow green blue(incl.indigo;
cyan,teal,turquoise) 		purple/violet
pink(including
magenta) 		brown white gray/grey black

Further reading

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Anagrams

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Aragonese

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Etymology

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InheritedfromLatincolōrem.

Pronunciation

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  • IPA(key):/koˈlo(ɾ)/
  • Rhymes:-o(ɾ)
  • Syllabification:co‧lor

Noun

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colorf

  1. color/colour

References

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  • Bal Palazios, Santiago(2002) “color”, inDizionario breu de a luenga aragonesa,Zaragoza,→ISBN
  • “color”,inAragonario, diccionario aragonés–castellano(in Spanish)

Asturian

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Alternative forms

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Etymology

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InheritedfromLatincolor, colōrem.

Noun

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colorm(pluralcolores)

  1. color,colour
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Catalan

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Etymology

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InheritedfromLatincolōrem.CompareOccitancolor,Frenchcouleur.

Pronunciation

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Noun

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colormor(archaic, regional or poetic)f(pluralcolors)

  1. color,colour
  2. (poker)flush

Derived terms

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See also

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Colorsin Catalan ·colors(layout·text)
blanc gris negre
roig,vermell;carmesí taronja;marró groc;crema
verd llima verd
cian;xarxet atzur blau
violat;indi magenta;lila,porpra rosa

Further reading

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Galician

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Alternative forms

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Etymology

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InheritedfromOld Galician-Portuguesecolor,alternative form ofcoor,perhaps from an older formscollor(compareAsturiancollorandcolor), fromLatincolor, colōrem.

Pronunciation

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Noun

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colorf(pluralcolores)

  1. color/colour,hue
    • 1295,R. Lorenzo,La traducción gallega de la Crónica General y de la Crónica de Castilla,Ourense: I.E.O.P.F., page745:
      diz que apareçeu ẽno çeo hũa cruz, que era de muytascoloreset muy fremosa; et teuerõna os cristãos por muy boo sinal
      he says that a cross appeared in the sky, which was of manycolorsand very beauty; and the Christians considered it a very good sign
  2. flush(suffusion of the face with blood)

Derived terms

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References

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Italian

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Pronunciation

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  • IPA(key):/koˈlor/
  • Rhymes:-or
  • Hyphenation:co‧lór

Noun

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colorm(apocopated)

  1. Apocopicform ofcolore

Anagrams

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Latin

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Alternative forms

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Etymology

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From earliercolōs(genitivecolōris), fromProto-Italic*kelōs,fromProto-Indo-European*ḱel-(“to hide, conceal”).[1]The nominative singular changed tocolorin Classical times by analogy with the oblique forms, where /r/ had regularly developed from an original intervocalic /s/.

Pronunciation

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Noun

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colorm(genitivecolōris);third declension

  1. color(US),colour(UK);shade,hue,tint
    • 8CE,Ovid,Fasti4.429–430:
      tot fuerant illic, quot habet nātūra,colōrēs,
      pictaque dissimilī flōre nitēbat humus.
      In that place there had been so manycolors– as many as nature possesses –
      and the ground was radiant, having been decorated with every different flower.
      (Ovid describes the field wherePersephoneand her attendants picked flowers.)
  2. pigment
  3. complexion
  4. outwardappearance

Declension

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Third-declensionnoun.

singular plural
nominative color colōrēs
genitive colōris colōrum
dative colōrī colōribus
accusative colōrem colōrēs
ablative colōre colōribus
vocative color colōrēs

Derived terms

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Descendants

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Descendants

References

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  • "color",inCharlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879)A Latin Dictionary,Oxford: Clarendon Press
  • "color",inCharlton T. Lewis (1891)An Elementary Latin Dictionary,New York: Harper & Brothers
  • colorin Charles du Fresne du Cange’sGlossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis(augmented edition with additions by D. P. Carpenterius, Adelungius and others, edited by Léopold Favre, 1883–1887)
  • colorinGaffiot, Félix (1934)Dictionnaire illustré latin-français,Hachette.
  1. ^De Vaan, Michiel(2008) “color”, inEtymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages(Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series; 7), Leiden, Boston: Brill,→ISBN,page126

Occitan

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Alternative forms

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Etymology

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InheritedfromOld Occitancolor,fromLatincolor, colōrem.

Pronunciation

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Noun

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colorf(pluralcolors)

  1. color/colour

Old French

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Alternative forms

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Etymology

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InheritedfromLatincolor, colōrem(“color or colour”).

Noun

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coloroblique singular,f(oblique pluralcolors,nominative singularcolor,nominative pluralcolors)

  1. color/colour

Descendants

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Old Galician-Portuguese

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Noun

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colorf(pluralcolors)

  1. Alternative form ofcoor

Descendants

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Old Occitan

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Etymology

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InheritedfromLatincolōrem.

Noun

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colorf(oblique pluralcolors,nominative singularcolor,nominative pluralcolors)

  1. color/colour

Descendants

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Old Spanish

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Etymology

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InheritedfromLatincolor.Cognate withOld Galician-Portuguesecoor.

Pronunciation

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Noun

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colorm(pluralcolores)

  1. color/colour
    • c.1200,Almerich,Fazienda de Ultramar,f. 19r:
      […] &́ vieron la gĺa de iſŕl dedios. Como huebra de blãcor. &́ de cristal. ⁊ comocolorde los cielosmõdos […]
      […] and they saw the glory of the God of Israel, like a work of white and crystal, and like thecolorof realm of the heavens. […]

Descendants

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Romanian

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Etymology

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BorrowedfromEnglishcolor.Doubletofculoare.

Adjective

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colormorforn(indeclinable)

  1. color/colour(about film or photography)

Declension

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invariable singular plural
masculine neuter feminine masculine neuter feminine
nominative-
accusative 		indefinite color color color color
definite — — — —
genitive-
dative 		indefinite color color color color
definite — — — —

Spanish

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SpanishWikipediahas an article on:
Wikipediaes

Etymology

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InheritedfromOld Spanishcolor,fromLatincolōrem,singularaccusativeofcolor.

Pronunciation

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Noun

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colormorfsame meaning(pluralcolores)

  1. color/colour,hue
    • 1888,Eduardo Acevedo Díaz,Ismael‎[2],Buenos Aires: La Tribuna Nacional:
      Las mujeres atendían los pasteles y los peones los asados, a los que daban las últimas vueltas en las brasas, ya bien en punto y goteando grasacolorde oro.
      (pleaseadd an English translationof this quotation)
  2. (usuallyfeminine,archaicordialectal)complexion

Noun

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colorm(pluralcolores)

  1. rouge(cosmetics)
  2. pretext,motive,reason
  3. character;specialquality
    • 1992,“Sevilla tiene uncolorespecial”, César Cadaval, Miguel Ángel Magüesín (lyrics), performed by Los del Río:
      Sevilla tiene uncolorespecial / Sevilla sigue teniendo su duende / Me sigue oliendo a azahar / Me gusta estar con su gente
      Seville has a specialcharacter/ Seville still has its charm / It still smells like orange blossom to me / I like to be with its people
  4. side,party,faction
  5. race,ethnicity
  6. (poker)flush

Usage notes

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  • The word is generally used in the masculine, while its use in the feminine is normal in medieval or classical Spanish. However, in countries like Chile or Ecuador, its use in the feminine is normal to refer to certain food colorings.[1]

Derived terms

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See also

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Colorsin Spanish ·colores(layout·text)
blanco gris negro
rojo;carmín,carmesí naranja,anaranjado;marrón amarillo;crema
lima verde menta
cian,turquesa;azul-petróleo celeste,cerúleo azul
violeta;añil,índigo magenta;morado,púrpura rosa,rosado
Suits in Spanish ·palos(layout·text)
corazones diamantes picas tréboles

References

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  1. ^“color”inDiccionario panhispánico de dudas,segunda edición,Real Academia Española, 2023.→ISBN

Further reading

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Anagrams

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