colorful
UK spellingcolourful
- 1Having bright, prominent colors in a variety of different shades.
The market stalls were piled high with colorful fruits and fabrics.
Coral reef fish are among the most colorful creatures in the ocean.
Similarbright, vivid, vibrant, multicolored, brilliant
Oppositedrab, dull, colorless, muted
Note
The US spelling of a plain compound, color plus -ful. The same word appears as colourful in The Annual of the British School at Athens (1895), describing a vase with red and white hoops. Both spellings compare with more and most (more colorful, most colorful) rather than with -er and -est. The word's other meanings follow the same spelling split.
- 2Interesting and full of variety; lively, distinctive, and many-sided.
The biography paints a colorful portrait of a restless inventor.
Her colorful career carried her from journalism into politics and then film.
Similarvivid, lively, eventful, interesting, rich
Oppositedull, boring, drab, uneventful
Note
Here color moves from the eye to character, describing people and the way they act or write rather than how they look. The Autocar uses it twice in one sentence, for one of the most colorful people in motor racing and for his colorful manner of writing. Watch the noun it meets: a colorful style is lively, but colorful language usually means swearing.
- 3Profane, obscene, or offensive, typically a mild way of describing strong or vulgar language.
The station apologized after a guest's colorful language slipped past the broadcast delay.
Dockworkers were once famous for their colorful vocabulary.
Similarsalty, profane, crude, rude, obscene
Note
A polite cover for swearing: calling someone's speech colorful reports that they cursed without repeating a word of it. It almost always appears in the set phrase colorful language, as when BBC Sport in 2002 described Hussain celebrating his century with a pointed gesture and some colourful language. Outside that phrase, the lively, distinctive meaning usually takes over, so a colorful speaker may simply be vivid.
Practice
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Origin
Formed from "color" combined with the suffix "-ful."