colored

comparative more colored · superlative most colored · alternative UK coloured · alternative US Colored · alternative UK Coloured

1. USHaving a color.

   Wash colored items separately from whites and darks to prevent the colors from bleeding.

2. USin compoundsHaving a particular color or kind of color.

   The room was red, with a dark-colored rug.

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   Nara and its deer are so closely associated that the light-brown colored animals are pictured in the city’s tourism ads, on buses, train tickets and more.

   2024 July 23, Lilit Marcus, “Japan may be sick of mass tourism. But the deer in this ancient UNESCO-listed city love it”, in CNN

3. USHaving prominent colors; colorful.

   The singer wore a colored shirt.

4. USBiased; pervasively (but potentially subtly) influenced in a particular way.

   Mr. Brewer gave me his version of the history of the Conference of Studio Unions. It appeared to me then and appears to me now to have been a very colored view.

   1948, 80th United States Congress, Jurisdictional Disputes in the Motion-Picture Industry, volume 3, Washington: Government Printing Office, →OCLC, page 1966

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   But by and large, a majority of Sanduskians never read any newspaper other than the local journal and I am convinced that they get a far more colored view of national news than they did when the city had competing dailies.

   1949 January, Glenn D. Everett, “Putting the President On the Market Page”, in Nieman Reports, volume 3, number 1, Cambridge: Society of Nieman Fellows, →ISSN, page 26

   The organization's traditions and culture are inwardly focused. It is not conceivable that an alternative solution could exist. This results in a very colored view of the marketplace.

   2001, Bernard H. Boar, The Art of Strategic Planning for Information Technology, 2nd edition, New York: John Wiley & Sons, →ISBN, page 93

5. USdatedoffensiveusuallyOf skin color other than white; in particular, black.

   To find a job is like a haystack needle / Because where he lives they don't use colored people

   1973, Stevie Wonder, “Living for the City”, in Innervisions

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   […] a beautiful silk standard donated to the Third Battalion by the colored ladies of the city of New York, was formally presented to the battalion.

   1898, William H. Chenery, The Fourteenth Regiment Rhode Island Heavy Artillery (colored) in the War to Preserve the Union, 1861-1865, page 38

   He made a smart remark about colored people and I got mad. I got mad because I like colored people. In fact, a colored lady raised me. Some of my best friends are colored people.

   1967, “Cowboys & Colored People”performed by Flip Wilson

   Harriet [Blackburn] had “all the clothes, the styles and all the values of the black bourgeoisie,” Eleanor laughs. “Yet we were fast friends ’cause she was a colored girl, by which I mean we were of the same culture.”

   2003, Joan Steinau Lester, “Far from U Street”, in Eleanor Holmes Norton: Fire in My Soul, New York, N.Y.: Atria Books, →ISBN, part 1 (Full of the Faith That the Dark Past Has Taught Us), page 70

6. BotswanaNamibiaSouth AfricaUSZimbabwecapitalizedsometimesBelonging to a multiracial ethnic group or category, having ancestry from more than one of the racial groups of Southern Africa (black, white, and Asian). (Under apartheid, used as a metadescription for mixed-race people and peoples such as the Cape Coloureds.)

   Most of the colored community speaks Afrikaans, whereas languages like Xhosa or Venda are typically spoken by blacks and English is spoken mostly by whites.

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   By the end of the 19th century District Six had become a bustling and heavily populated working class neighborhood whose population was predominantly coloured, Cape Malay and African intermixed with Indian, Chinese, and European migrants.

   2011, John Bradley, Liz Bradley, Jon Vidar, Victoria Fine, Cape Town: Winelands & the Garden Route, Modern Overland, →ISBN, page 72

   By 1929, many of the Coloured radicals who had been excluded from the ICU had found a temporary home in the Western Cape branch of the African National Congress (ANC).

   2014, Shula Marks, Stanley Trapido, editors, The Politics of Race, Class and Nationalism in Twentieth Century South Africa, Routledge, →ISBN

   Synonyms: Eurafrican

7. UShistoricalDesignated for use by colored people (in either the US or South African sense).

   a colored hospital

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   a colored drinking fountain

   New Orleans is a very dull town. It’s against the law to go to the colored section. The bars are insufferably dreary.

   1957 September 5, Jack Kerouac, On the Road, New York, N.Y.: Viking Press, →OCLC

plural coloreds · alternative UK coloured · alternative US Colored · alternative UK Coloured

1. USlaundryA colored article of clothing.
2. South AfricaUSA person having ancestry from more than one of the racial groups of Southern Africa (black, white, and Asian); a colored person.

   Synonyms: Eurafrican

3. USdatedoffensiveA colored (nonwhite) person.

   When a white fellow gets in the ring with an eight ball the eight ball's got no chance. You see, 'cause they call boxing the sweet science. And that's where your colored just runs into trouble. That's just that science part. / Yeah, but Joe Louis is a big 'un.

   2005, “Creed, OK”, in Carnivàle, episode 17

alternative UK coloured · alternative US Colored · alternative UK Coloured

1. USparticiplepastsimple past and past participle of color

1. not comparableAlternative letter-case form of colored (“non-white, or mixed race”).