color

plural colors · alternative Commonwealth Ireland colour · alternative usage notes

1. uncountableThe spectral composition of visible light.

   Humans and birds can perceive color.

   Synonyms: blee

2. A subset thereof:
   1. countableA particular set of visible spectral compositions, perceived or named as a class.

      What color are your bf's eyes?

      3 more examples

      Most languages have names for the colors black, white, red, and green.

      We should paint the wall another color.

      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 small lights on the choristers' desks flashed and sparkled in front of the boys' faces, deep linen collars, and red neckbands.

      1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter V, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC

      Synonyms: hue, blee

   2. uncountableHue as opposed to achromatic colors (black, white and grays).

      The accident victim's face was white, drained of all color.

      Synonyms: hue, shade, blee

   3. countableuncountableThese 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.

      1 more example

      Most people dream in color, but some dream in black and white.

      Synonyms: color television

   4. countableuncountablegovernmentAny of the standard dark tinctures used in a coat of arms, including azure, gules, sable, and vert.
3. countableuncountableA paint.

   The artist took out her colors and began work on a landscape.

4. uncountableHuman skin tone, especially as an indicator of race or ethnicity.

   Color has been a sensitive issue in many societies.

   Synonyms: complexion, ethnicity, race

5. countableuncountablemedicineSkin color, noted as normal, jaundiced, cyanotic, flush, mottled, pale, or ashen as part of the skin signs assessment.
6. countableuncountableA 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 to advantage.

   1864, Sir Henry Stewart Cunningham, Late Laurels, volumes 1-2, page 117

7. countablefigurativelyuncountableRichness of expression; detail or flavour that is likely to generate interest or enjoyment.

   color commentary

   5 more examples

   color commentator

   There is a great deal of colour in his writing.

   a bit of local color

   Three chairs of the steamer type, all maimed, comprised the furniture of this roof-garden, with (by way of local color) on one of the copings a row of four red clay flower-pots filled with sun-baked dust […]

   1914 November, Louis Joseph Vance, “An Outsider […]”, in Munsey’s Magazine, volume LIII, number II, New York, N.Y.: The Frank A[ndrew] Munsey Company, […], published 1915, →OCLC, chapter I (Anarchy), page 377, column 2

   Whenever Marx himself went into detail, he certainly did not push his hypothesis to such an absurd extreme. He did, however, coin some formulas that gave colour to this simplistic interpretation.

   1978 [1976], Leszek Kołakowski, translated by P[aul] S[teven] Falla, Main Currents of Marxism, volume I: The Founders, Oxford: Clarendon Press, translation of Główne nurty marksizmu: powstanie (in Polish), →ISBN, →OCLC, page 370

8. A standard, flag, or insignia:
   1. countablein pluraluncountableA standard or banner.

      The loss of their colors destroyed the regiment's morale.

      Synonyms: banner, standard

   2. countablein pluraluncountableThe flag of a nation or team.

      The colors were raised over the new territory.

      1 more example

      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 British papers, shall have entered the port of Bangkok for purposes of trade, subsequent to the signing of this Treaty.

      1856, “Treaty signed April 18, 1855; ratified April 5, 1856”, in Treaty of friendship and commerce between Great Britain and Siam, Bangkok: J. H. Chandler, page 7

   3. countablein pluraluncountableGang insignia.

      Both of the perpetrators were wearing colors.

9. countablein pluraluncountableAn award for sporting achievement, particularly within a school or university.

   He was awarded colors for his football.

10. countablein pluraluncountablegovernmentThe morning ceremony of raising the flag.
11. countableuncountablenatural sciencesA property of quarks, with three values called red, green, and blue, which they can exchange by passing gluons; color charge.
12. uncountablebusinessA 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.

    Synonyms: colour, DgammaDtime, gamma decay

13. countableuncountablemediaThe relative lightness or darkness of a mass of written or printed text on a page. (See type color on Wikipedia.Wikipedia )
14. countableuncountableball gamesAny of the colored balls excluding the reds.
15. countableuncountableA 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.

    2011, David Baldacci, The Collectors

16. countableuncountableAn appearance of right or authority; color of law.

    They held possession under color of title.

    3 more examples

    Under color of law, he managed to bilk taxpayers of millions of dollars.

    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 colored boy.

    1882, The Ohio Law Journal, volume 2, page 396

    no such action, suit, or any other process or proceeding thereupon shall at any time be impeached, stayed, or delayed by or under colour or pretence of any privilege of Parliament.

    1770, “Parliamentary Privilege Act 1770”, in legislation.gov.uk

17. countableuncountablebusinessGold, 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.

    2013, Eleanor Catton, The Luminaries, London: Granta, published 2014, →ISBN, page 184

18. countableslanguncountablegovernmentTo bleed, either through injury or blading. Usually prefaced with "get".

    The local hero is getting color in tonight's spectacle.

19. countableuncountableentertainmentTimbre, 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 dominate in their best voice.

    1982, Samuel Adler, The Study of Orchestration, New York: W. W. Norton & Company, published 1982, →ISBN, page 115

20. countableuncountablehuman sciencesThe quality of a particular vowel sound.

alternative Commonwealth Ireland colour · alternative usage notes

1. USnot comparableConveying color, as opposed to shades of gray.

   Color television and movies were considered a great improvement over black and white.

   1 more example

   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.

   1977, John Cheever, Falconer (A Borzoi Book), New York, N.Y.: Alfred A[braham] Knopf, →ISBN, page 209

present singular third person colors · participle present coloring · participle past colored · past colored · alternative Commonwealth Ireland colour · alternative usage notes

1. UStransitiveTo give something color.

   We could color the walls red.

   Synonyms: dye, paint, stain, shade, tinge, tint

   1. UStransitiveTo cause (a pipe, especially a meerschaum) to take on a brown or black color, by smoking.

      Synonyms: dye, paint, stain, shade, tinge, tint

2. USintransitiveTo apply colors to the areas within the boundaries of a line drawing using colored markers or crayons.

   My kindergartener loves to color.

   Synonyms: color in

3. USTo become red through increased blood flow.

   Her face colored as she realized her mistake.

   Synonyms: blush

4. USTo affect without completely changing.

   That interpretation certainly colors my perception of the book.

   Synonyms: affect, influence

5. USinformalTo attribute a quality to; to portray (as).

   Color me confused.

   1 more example

   They tried to colour the industrial unrest as a merely local matter.

   Synonyms: call

6. USgraph theoryTo 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?

   1 more example

   You can color any map with four colors.

7. USusuallyhuman sciencesTo affect the quality of a speech sound, especially a vowel.

   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.

   1 more example

   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 [e] by an adjacent palatalized consonant.