hue
nounEtymology From Old French hu or Old French heu, a hunting cry.
1
Obsolete A shout or cry.
- Derived terms
- hue and cry
hue
nounCA, UK /hjuː/ · US /hju/
Etymology
From Middle English hewe, from Old English hīew (“appearance, form, species, kind; apparition; hue, color; beauty; figure of speech”), from Proto-West Germanic *hiwi, from Proto-Germanic *hiwją (“hue, form, shape, appearance; mildew”), from Proto-Indo-European *kew-, *ḱew- (“skin, colour of the skin”) or *ḱey- (“grey, dark shade”). Cognate with Swedish hy (“complexion, skin”), Norwegian hy (“fluff, mold, skin”), Icelandic hégómi (“vanity”), Gothic 𐌷𐌹𐍅𐌹 (hiwi, “form, show, appearance”). Compare also Sanskrit छवि (chavi, “cuticle, skin, hide; beauty, splendour”); Irish ceo (“fog”), Tocharian B kwele (“black, dark grey”), Lithuanian šývas (“light grey”), Albanian thinjë (“grey”), Sanskrit श्याव (śyāvá, “brown”).
1
A color, or shade of color; tint; dye.
- A great chocolate-coloured pall lowered over heaven, but the wind was continually charging and routing these embattled vapours; so that as the cab crawled from street to street, Mr. Utterson beheld a marvellous number of degrees and hues of twilight; for here it would be dark like the back-end of evening; and there would be a glow of a rich, lurid brown, like the light of some strange conflagration; and here, for a moment, the fog would be quite broken up, and a haggard shaft of daylight would glance in between the swirling wreaths.1886 January 5, Robert Louis Stevenson, “The Carew Murder Case”, in Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, London: Longmans, Green, and Co., →OCLC, pages 39–40:
2
The characteristic related to the light frequency that appears in the color, for instance red, yellow, green, cyan, blue or magenta.
- In digital arts, HSV color uses hue together with saturation and value.
3
Figuratively Character; aspect.
- This puts a completely different hue on the matter.
4
Obsolete Form; appearance; guise.