/ˈkʌl.ə/, /ˈkʌl.ə(ɹ)/, [ˈkʰʌl.ə(ɹ)]
OriginFrom 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).
- uncountableThe spectral composition of visible light.
“Humans and birds can perceive color.”
- countableA particular set of visible spectral compositions, perceived or named as a class.
“Most languages have names for the colors black, white, red, and green.”
“What color are your bf's eyes?”
“Here, in the transept and choir, where the service was being held, one was conscious every moment of an increasing brightness; colours glowing vividly beneath the circular chandeliers, and the rows of”
- uncountableHue as opposed to achromatic colors (black, white and grays).
“The accident victim's face was white, drained of all color.”
- countable, uncountableThese hues as used in color television or films, color photographs, etc (as opposed to the shades of grey used in black-and-white television).
“This film is broadcast in color. Most people dream in color, but some dream in black and white.”
- countable, uncountableAny of the standard dark tinctures used in a coat of arms, including azure, gules, sable, and vert.
- countable, uncountableA paint.
“The artist took out her colors and began work on a landscape.”
- uncountableHuman skin tone, especially as an indicator of race or ethnicity.
“Color has been a sensitive issue in many societies.”
- countable, uncountableSkin color, noted as normal, jaundiced, cyanotic, flush, mottled, pale, or ashen as part of the skin signs assessment.
- countable, uncountableA flushed appearance of blood in the face; redness of complexion.
“[…] her very embarrassment wore a graceful air; her high colour had softened down to a warm, delicate tint; and her dress, which looked beautifully new and fresh, was in good taste, and showed her off”
- countable, figuratively, uncountableRichness of expression; detail or flavour that is likely to generate interest or enjoyment.
“color commentator”
“color commentary”
“There is a great deal of colour in his writing.”
- countable, in-plural, uncountableA standard or banner.
“The loss of their colors destroyed the regiment's morale.”
- countable, in-plural, uncountableThe flag of a nation or team.
“The colors were raised over the new territory.”
“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 British colours and with Britis”
- countable, in-plural, uncountableGang insignia.
“Both of the perpetrators were wearing colors.”
- countable, in-plural, uncountableAn award for sporting achievement, particularly within a school or university.
“He was awarded colors for his football.”
- countable, in-plural, uncountableThe morning ceremony of raising the flag.
- countable, uncountableA property of quarks, with three values called red, green, and blue, which they can exchange by passing gluons; color charge.
- uncountableA 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.
- countable, uncountableThe relative lightness or darkness of a mass of written or printed text on a page. (See type color on Wikipedia.Wikipedia)
- countable, uncountableAny of the colored balls excluding the reds.
- countable, uncountableA front or facade; an ostensible truth actually false; pretext.
“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 the color of serving his country.”
- countable, uncountableAn appearance of right or authority; color of law.
“Under color of law, he managed to bilk taxpayers of millions of dollars.”
“They held possession under color of title.”
“The only thing which this defendant is accused of doing is that he excluded this boy from the school, and he did it under the color of the statute relating to the subject, and did it because he was a ”
- countable, uncountableGold, particles of gold found when prospecting.
“He smelted Wells’s colour before it was valued, and by the time anybody saw it, it had been poured into bars and stamped with the Reserve seal.”
- countable, slang, uncountableTo bleed, either through injury or blading. Usally prefaced with "get".
“The local hero is getting color in tonight's spectacle.”
- countable, uncountableTimbre, often in relation to orchestration.
“In other words, Brahms saves the higher violin color for the more important foreground statement and assigns the soft swirling background to middle-register violins and violas, while the cellos domina”
- countable, uncountableThe quality of a particular vowel sound.
- US, not-comparableConveying color, as opposed to shades of gray.
“Color television and movies were considered a great improvement over black and white.”
“I took my TV over on the first trip. I got a beauty. It's four years old, color, but when I had a little snow and asked the repairman to come in, he told me never, never turn this set in for a new one”
- US, transitiveTo give something color.
“We could color the walls red.”
- US, transitiveTo cause (a pipe, especially a meerschaum) to take on a brown or black color, by smoking.
- US, intransitiveTo apply colors to the areas within the boundaries of a line drawing using colored markers or crayons.
“My kindergartener loves to color.”
- USTo become red through increased blood flow.
“Her face colored as she realized her mistake.”
- USTo affect without completely changing.
“That interpretation certainly colors my perception of the book.”
- US, informalTo attribute a quality to; to portray (as).
“Color me confused.”
“They tried to colour the industrial unrest as a merely local matter.”
- USTo 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.
“Can this graph be 2-colored?”
“You can color any map with four colors.”
- US, usuallyTo affect the quality of a speech sound, especially a vowel.
“Many languages have a "neutral", roughly central vowel like /a/ or /ə/ which can be colored to a back, rounded vowel like [o] by an adjacent labialized consonant, or to a front, unrounded vowel like [”
“The Proto-Indo-European laryngeal *h₂ often colors the neutral vowel *e with an a-like quality, while *h₃ results in a more o-like quality; *h₁ has no coloring effect.”
Formscolors(plural) · colour(alternative, Commonwealth, Ireland) · usage notes(alternative) · colors(present, singular, third-person) · coloring(participle, present) · colored(participle, past) · colored(past)