Etymology From Middle English colour, color, borrowed from Anglo-Norman colur, from Old French colour, color, from Latin color. Doublet of couleur. Largely 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).
A 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?
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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:
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Hue as opposed to achromatic colors (black, white and grays).
The accident victim's face was white, drained of all color.
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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).
This film is broadcast in color. Most people dream in color, but some dream in black and white.
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Government, Heraldry, Hobbies, Lifestyle, Monarchy, Nobility, Politics Any of the standard dark tinctures used in a coat of arms, including azure, gules, sable, and vert.
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A paint.
The artist took out her colors and began work on a landscape.
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Human skin tone, especially as an indicator of race or ethnicity.
Color has been a sensitive issue in many societies.
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Medicine, Sciences Skin color, noted as normal, jaundiced, cyanotic, flush, mottled, pale, or ashen as part of the skin signs assessment.
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A 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:
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Figuratively Richness of expression; detail or flavour that is likely to generate interest or enjoyment.
color commentator
color commentary
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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:
Could you give me some color with regards to which products made up the mix of revenue for this quarter?
› A standard, flag, or insignia:
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In plural A standard or banner.
The loss of their colors destroyed the regiment's morale.
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In plural The 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 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:
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In plural Gang insignia.
Both of the perpetrators were wearing colors.
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In plural An award for sporting achievement, particularly within a school or university.
Natural sciences, Physical sciences, Physics A property of quarks, with three values called red, green, and blue, which they can exchange by passing gluons; color charge.
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Business, Finance 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.
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Media, Publishing, Typography The relative lightness or darkness of a mass of written or printed text on a page. (See type color on Wikipedia.Wikipedia )
A 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:
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An 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.
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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:
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Business, Mining Gold, 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:
The local hero is getting color in tonight's spectacle.
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Entertainment, Lifestyle, Music Timbre, 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:
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Human sciences, Linguistics, Sciences The quality of a particular vowel sound.
Etymology From Middle English colour, color, borrowed from Anglo-Norman colur, from Old French colour, color, from Latin color. Doublet of couleur. Largely 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).
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.1977, John Cheever, Falconer (A Borzoi Book), New York, N.Y.: Alfred A[braham] Knopf, →ISBN, page 209:
color
verb
Etymology From Middle English colour, color, borrowed from Anglo-Norman colur, from Old French colour, color, from Latin color. Doublet of couleur. Largely 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).
That interpretation certainly colors my perception of the book.
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US, Informal To attribute a quality to; to portray (as).
Color me confused.
They tried to colour the industrial unrest as a merely local matter.
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Graph theory, Mathematics, SciencesUS 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.
Can this graph be 2-colored?
You can color any map with four colors.
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Human sciences, Linguistics, SciencesUS, Usually, Of a phoneme To 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 [e] by an adjacent palatalized consonant.
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.