color

color

synonyms, antonyms, definitions, examples & translations of color in English

English Online Dictionary. What means color‎? What does color mean?

English

Alternative forms

  • colour (Commonwealth, Ireland) (see the usage notes below)

Etymology

From Middle English colour, color, borrowed from Anglo-Norman colur, from Old French colour, color, from Latin color. Doublet of couleur.

Displaced English blee, Middle English blee (“color”), from Old English blēo. Also partially replaced Old English hīew (“color”) and its descendants (English hue), which is less often used in this sense.

The spelling color was popularized in modern American English by Noah 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

  • (General American) enPR: kŭlʹər, IPA(key): /ˈkʌl.ɚ/
  • (Received Pronunciation) enPR: kŭlʹə, IPA(key): /ˈkʌl.ə/
  • (Northern England) enPR: ko͝olʹə, IPA(key): /ˈkʊl.ə/
  • (Scotland, Northern Ireland) enPR: kŭlʹər, IPA(key): /ˈkʌləɹ/
  • (Ireland) enPR: ko͝olʹər, IPA(key): /ˈkʊləɹ/
  • Rhymes: -ʌlə(ɹ)
  • Homophone: culler
  • Hyphenation: col‧or

Noun

color (countable and uncountable, plural colors) (American spelling, Philippines) (Canadian spelling, rare)

  1. (uncountable) The spectral composition of visible light.
    Synonym: (archaic) blee
  2. A subset thereof:
    1. (countable) A particular set of visible spectral compositions, perceived or named as a class.
      Synonyms: hue, (archaic) blee
    2. (uncountable) Hue as opposed to achromatic colors (black, white and grays).
      Synonyms: hue, shade, (archaic) blee
    3. These hues as used in color television or films, color photographs, etc (as opposed to the shades of grey used in black-and-white television).
      Synonym: color television
    4. (heraldry) Any of the standard dark tinctures used in a coat of arms, including azure, gules, sable, and vert.
      Coordinate terms: metal, stain
  3. A paint.
  4. (uncountable) Human skin tone, especially as an indicator of race or ethnicity.
    Synonyms: complexion, ethnicity, race
  5. (medicine) Skin color, noted as normal, jaundiced, cyanotic, flush, mottled, pale, or ashen as part of the skin signs assessment.
  6. A flushed appearance of blood in the face; redness of complexion.
  8. (figuratively) Richness of expression; detail or flavour that is likely to generate interest or enjoyment.
    color commentator, color commentary
  9. A standard, flag, or insignia:
    1. (in the plural) A standard or banner.
      Synonyms: banner, standard
    2. (in the plural) The flag of a nation or team.
    3. (in the plural) Gang insignia.
  10. (in the plural) An award for sporting achievement, particularly within a school or university.
  11. (military, in the plural) The morning ceremony of raising the flag.
  12. (physics) A property of quarks, with three values called red, green, and blue, which they can exchange by passing gluons; color charge.
  13. (finance, uncountable) A third-order measure of derivative price sensitivity, expressed as the rate of change of gamma with respect to time, or equivalently the rate of change of charm with respect to changes in the underlying asset price.
  14. (typography) The relative lightness or darkness of a mass of written or printed text on a page. (See type color on Wikipedia.Wikipedia )
  15. (snooker) Any of the colored balls excluding the reds.
  16. A front or facade; an ostensible truth actually false; pretext.
  17. An appearance of right or authority; color of law.
  18. (mining) Gold, particles of gold found when prospecting.
  19. (professional wrestling slang) To bleed, either through injury or blading. Usally prefaced with "get".

Usage notes

  • The late Anglo-Norman colour, which is the standard UK spelling, has been the usual spelling in Britain since the 14th century and was chosen by Dr. Johnson's Dictionary of the English Language (1755) along with other Anglo-Norman spellings such as favour, honour, etc. The Latin spelling color was occasionally used from the 15th century onward, mainly due to Latin influence; it was lemmatized by Webster's American Dictionary of the English Language (1828), along with favor, honor, etc., and is currently the standard US spelling.
  • In Canada, colour is preferred, but color is not unknown; in Australia, -our endings are the standard, although -or endings had some currency in the past and are still sporadically found in some regions. In New Zealand and South Africa, -our endings are the standard.

Synonyms

  • (measure of derivative price sensitivity): colour, DgammaDtime, gamma decay

Hypernyms

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

Hyponyms

Derived terms

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

Translations

Adjective

color (not comparable) (American spelling)

  1. Conveying color, as opposed to shades of gray.

Translations

Verb

color (third-person singular simple present colors, present participle coloring, simple past and past participle colored) (American spelling)

  1. (transitive) To give something color.
    Synonyms: dye, paint, stain, shade, tinge, tint
    1. (transitive) To cause (a pipe, especially a meerschaum) 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
  3. (of a person or their face) To become red through increased blood flow.
    Synonym: blush
  4. To affect without completely changing.
    Synonyms: affect, influence
  6. (informal) To attribute a quality to; to portray (as).
    Synonym: call
  7. (mathematics, graph theory) To assign colors to the vertices of a graph (or the regions of a map) so that no two vertices connected by an edge (regions sharing a border) have the same color.

Antonyms

  • decolor

Hyponyms

Derived terms

  • colorate

Related terms

Translations

See also

  • tincture

Further reading

  • “color”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.
  • Color (disambiguation) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
  • Category:Colors on Wikimedia Commons.Wikimedia Commons

Anagrams

  • corol, crool

Aragonese

Etymology

Inherited from Latin colōrem.

Pronunciation

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

Noun

color f

  1. color / colour

References

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

Asturian

Alternative forms

  • collor

Etymology

Inherited from Latin color, colōrem.

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /koˈloɾ/ [koˈloɾ]
  • Rhymes: -oɾ
  • Syllabification: co‧lor

Noun

color m or f (plural colores)

  1. color, colour

Related terms

  • coloráu, colloráu

Catalan

Etymology

Inherited from Latin colōrem. Compare Occitan color, French couleur.

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): (Central) [kuˈlo]
  • IPA(key): (Balearic) [koˈlo]
  • IPA(key): (Valencia) [koˈloɾ]
  • Rhymes: -o(ɾ)

Noun

color m or (archaic, regional or poetic) f (plural colors)

  1. color, colour
  2. (poker) flush

Derived terms

See also

Further reading

  • “color” in Diccionari de la llengua catalana, segona edició, Institut d’Estudis Catalans.
  • “color”, in Gran Diccionari de la Llengua Catalana, Grup Enciclopèdia Catalana, 2025.
  • “color” in Diccionari normatiu valencià, Acadèmia Valenciana de la Llengua.
  • “color” in Diccionari català-valencià-balear, Antoni Maria Alcover and Francesc de Borja Moll, 1962.

Galician

Alternative forms

  • cor

Etymology

Inherited from Old Galician-Portuguese color, alternative form of coor, perhaps from an older forms collor (compare Asturian collor and color), from Latin color, colōrem.

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): [ˈkoloɾ]

Noun

color f (plural colores)

  1. color / colour, hue
  2. flush (suffusion of the face with blood)

Derived terms

  • colorado
  • de color

References

  • Ernesto Xosé González Seoane, María Álvarez de la Granja, Ana Isabel Boullón Agrelo (2006–2022) “color”, in Dicionario de Dicionarios do galego medieval (in Galician), Santiago de Compostela: Instituto da Lingua Galega
  • Xavier Varela Barreiro, Xavier Gómez Guinovart (2006–2018) “color”, in Corpus Xelmírez - Corpus lingüístico da Galicia medieval (in Galician), Santiago de Compostela: Instituto da Lingua Galega
  • Xavier Varela Barreiro, Xavier Gómez Guinovart (2006–2018) “collor”, in Corpus Xelmírez - Corpus lingüístico da Galicia medieval (in Galician), Santiago de Compostela: Instituto da Lingua Galega
  • Antón Luís Santamarina Fernández, editor (2006–2013), “color”, in Dicionario de Dicionarios da lingua galega [Dictionary of Dictionaries of the Galician language] (in Galician), Santiago de Compostela: Instituto da Lingua Galega
  • Antón Luís Santamarina Fernández, Ernesto Xosé González Seoane, María Álvarez de la Granja, editors (2003–2018), “color”, in Tesouro informatizado da lingua galega (in Galician), Santiago de Compostela: Instituto da Lingua Galega
  • Rosario Álvarez Blanco, editor (2014–2024), “cor”, in Tesouro do léxico patrimonial galego e portugués (in Galician), Santiago de Compostela: Instituto da Lingua Galega, →ISSN

Italian

Pronunciation

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

Noun

color m (apocopated)

  1. Apocopic form of colore

Anagrams

  • cloro, cloro-

Latin

Alternative forms

  • colōs (archaic)

Etymology

From earlier colōs (genitive colōris), from Proto-Italic *kelōs, from Proto-Indo-European *ḱel- (“to hide, conceal”). The nominative singular changed to color in Classical times by analogy with the oblique forms, where /r/ had regularly developed from an original intervocalic /s/.

Pronunciation

  • (Classical Latin) IPA(key): /ˈko.lor/, [ˈkɔɫ̪ɔr]
  • (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA(key): /ˈko.lor/, [ˈkɔːlor]

Noun

color m (genitive colōris); third declension

  1. color (US), colour (UK); shade, hue, tint
  2. pigment
  3. complexion
  4. outward appearance

Declension

Third-declension noun.

Derived terms

Descendants

References

Further reading

  • "color", in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  • "color", in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
  • "color", in Charles du Fresne du Cange’s Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition with additions by D. P. Carpenterius, Adelungius and others, edited by Léopold Favre, 1883–1887)
  • color in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.

Occitan

Alternative forms

  • coulour (Provençal)

Etymology

Inherited from Old Occitan color, from Latin color, colōrem.

Pronunciation

Noun

color f (plural colors)

  1. color / colour

Old French

Alternative forms

  • colour (colur, culur)

Etymology

Inherited from Latin color, colōrem (“color or colour”).

Noun

color oblique singular, f (oblique plural colors, nominative singular color, nominative plural colors)

  1. color / colour

Descendants

  • → Danish: kulør
  • → Dutch: kleur
    • Afrikaans: kleur
  • → English: color, colour
  • French: couleur
  • Norman: couleu (Jersey), couleur (Guernsey), couoleu (continental Normandy)
  • → Swedish: kulör

Old Galician-Portuguese

Noun

color f (plural colors)

  1. Alternative form of coor

Descendants

  • Galician: color

Old Occitan

Etymology

Inherited from Latin colōrem.

Noun

color f (oblique plural colors, nominative singular color, nominative plural colors)

  1. color / colour

Descendants

  • Occitan: color f

Old Spanish

Etymology

Inherited from Latin color. Cognate with Old Galician-Portuguese coor.

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /koˈloɾ/

Noun

color m (plural colores)

  1. color / colour

Descendants

  • Spanish: color m or f

Romanian

Etymology

Borrowed from English color. Doublet of culoare.

Adjective

color m or f or n (indeclinable)

  1. color / colour (about film or photography)

Declension

Spanish

Etymology

Inherited from Old Spanish color, from Latin colōrem, singular accusative of color.

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /koˈloɾ/ [koˈloɾ]
  • Rhymes: -oɾ
  • Syllabification: co‧lor

Noun

color m or f same meaning (plural colores)

  1. color / colour, hue
  2. (usually feminine, archaic or dialectal) complexion

Noun

color m (plural colores)

  1. rouge (cosmetics)
  2. pretext, motive, reason
  3. character; special quality
  4. side, party, faction
  5. race, ethnicity
  6. (poker) flush

Usage notes

  • 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.

Derived terms

Related terms

See also

References

Further reading

  • “color”, in Diccionario de la lengua española [Dictionary of the Spanish Language] (in Spanish), online version 23.8, Royal Spanish Academy [Spanish: Real Academia Española], 2024 December 10

Anagrams

  • cloro, corló, corlo, locro

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Related Words

colors

colored

colorado

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