colour
Pluralcolours
Verbcolours, colouring, coloured
US spellingcolor
Pluralcolours
Formscolours, colouring, coloured
- 1The way something looks as a result of the light it gives out or reflects, seen as shades such as red, green or blue; also, any one of these shades.
The bathroom is painted a pale colour somewhere between green and grey.
Some languages use a single word for the colours that English calls blue and green.
UsageAsk what colour something is; in the answer the colour word is enough: her coat is blue (not
incorrect: blue colour). - 2Full colour as opposed to black and white: the quality of showing hues such as red or blue rather than only black, white and greys, especially in a picture, photograph, film or television image.
The winter fog had drained the valley of colour, leaving only greys.
Her early prints are almost all black and white, but her later work is full of colour.
UsageA film or photo is in colour or in black and white; a little is a splash or a bit of colour.
Oppositemonochrome
Note
Black, white and grey do not count as colour in this use, which is why a grey wall still has a colour of its own while a black-and-white film has no colour at all.
- 3Showing or producing colour, rather than only black, white and shades of grey.
The Sunday paper comes with a glossy colour supplement.
The form asks for a recent passport photo, which must be colour, not black and white.
UsageMostly before a noun (a colour photo, colour TV). Don't mix it up with colourful, which means bright and full of different colours.
Oppositemonochrome
- 4To make something a particular colour or add colour to it, for instance by dyeing, painting or tinting.
Cooks sometimes colour the icing with a few drops of beetroot juice.
Waste from the factory had coloured the river a murky brown.
UsagePut the new colour after the object and the dye after with: colour the icing pink, colour it with beetroot juice.
- 5A person's skin tone, especially when it is taken as a mark of race or ethnic background.
The new policy bans discrimination on grounds of colour, religion or sex.
Questions of colour and class run through the whole novel.
UsageCommon in phrases about fair treatment: discrimination on grounds of colour, regardless of colour, whatever their colour or religion.
- 6A particular colour or combination of colours by which a team, club, school or racehorse owner is known, together with the shirts, silks and other clothing in them.
The visitors played in their change colours to avoid a clash with the home side's red shirts.
Racing in the owner's famous black and gold colours, the favourite won by three lengths.
UsageUsually with -s, even for one colour: the club's colours are blue. A team plays in its colours.
- 7Any substance, such as a dye or tint, that is applied to something or mixed into it to give it colour, for example on hair or in food.
Her stylist suggested a semi-permanent colour that would wash out after a few weeks.
The company has replaced the artificial colours in its sweets with ones made from beetroot and turmeric.
UsageFood labels list artificial colours or natural colours; for baking at home people also say food colouring.
- 8To fill in the shapes of a line drawing with colour, using crayons, coloured pencils or felt-tip pens.
Children in reception class learn to colour without going over the lines.
She finds that colouring in helps her relax after a long shift.
UsageOften colour in (the children sat and coloured in); a book of pictures for this is a colouring book.
- 9Vividness of expression, or lively detail and flavour that make something, such as writing or a description, more interesting or enjoyable.
Her letters home are full of colour, from village gossip to the price of eggs.
The reporter added some local colour by interviewing the landlord of the village pub.
UsageA common set phrase is local colour, details that make a place feel real. Things add colour to a story.
Similarflavour, vividness, liveliness, interest
- 10The timbre or tone quality of an instrument, voice or ensemble, often considered in terms of orchestration.
The composer saves the bright colour of the trumpets for the final chorus.
Moving the tune from the violins to the violas gives it a darker colour.
Note
Two instruments playing the same note equally loudly still sound different, and that difference is their colour: the reedy edge of an oboe, the dark warmth of a low cello. Musicians speak of tone colour and orchestral colour, and much of orchestration is the craft of blending them; Samuel Adler's The Study of Orchestration shows Brahms saving the higher violin colour for the foreground.
Checked 4 Nov 2026 · 3 facts
- Different instruments remain distinguishable by timbre when playing the same note at the same volume. en.wikipedia.org
- Samuel Adler wrote The Study of Orchestration. samuelhadler.com
- Adler's book describes Brahms reserving the higher violin colour for the foreground. studylib.net
Less common meanings
- 11A flag that stands for a nation, regiment, team or other group, such as one flown by a ship or carried on a pole by a military unit.
The yacht crossed the Channel sailing under Irish colours.
At midnight the new national colours were raised over the parliament building for the first time.
UsageUsually colours even for one flag (the colours were raised), but the parade is Trooping the Colour. A ship sails under French colours.
- 12To influence something, especially a judgement or view, without altering it entirely.
Personal loyalties inevitably colour a manager's judgement of her own team.
His account of the war is coloured by years of bitterness.
UsageOften in the passive with by: a judgement coloured by loyalty, memories coloured by grief.
- 13The colour of a person's face or skin as a sign of health or feeling, such as a red flush, a healthy ruddy look, or the pallor of illness.
She had a high colour, and her eyes were bright with fever.
The cold wind had whipped some colour into the children's faces.
UsageSet phrases: a high colour (a flushed face), the colour drained from her face, the colour came back to her cheeks.
Note
The word has a clinical use too: a check of skin signs records a person's colour as normal, pale, ashen, mottled, flushed or jaundiced. To go red in the face is to colour.
- 14
- 15To describe or portray someone or something as having a particular quality; most often in 'colour me' followed by an adjective, a wry way of saying how you feel.
The council says the potholes on our road will be fixed by Christmas, but colour me sceptical.
Colour me unconvinced: the club has promised a new stadium every year for a decade.
UsageMostly in colour me + adjective, a joking way to give your own reaction: colour me impressed, colour me sceptical.
- 16The political side a person, government or newspaper is on: the party they belong to or back, or the views and loyalties they hold.
Successive governments, whatever their political colour, have promised to reform social care and then shelved the plans.
When a council of a different political colour took control in May, it scrapped the low-traffic scheme within weeks.
UsageUsually as political colour: governments of all political colours, whatever their political colour.
- 17In snooker, any ball on the table other than the reds and the white cue ball.
Having taken the last red, he needed every colour to win the frame.
He potted a long red and then a difficult colour into the middle pocket.
Note
The colours take turns with the reds. While reds are left, each stroke that legally pots one or more reds earns a single shot at a colour, and a colour that goes down is put back, on its own spot if that is free. Once the last red and the colour after it have been played, the colours must be potted in a fixed order, from yellow to black.
- 18Of a person or their face, to turn red as more blood flows into the skin.
He coloured slightly and looked away when she mentioned the letter.
I could feel my face colour as the whole room turned to look at me.
UsageOften with at for the cause and with for the feeling: coloured at the remark, coloured with embarrassment.
- 19An honour a school or university gives for achievement, especially in sport, often shown by the right to wear a special tie or blazer.
He was awarded full colours for rugby after captaining the first fifteen.
At my school, half colours went to anyone who played ten matches for the first team.
UsageYou get or are awarded your colours for a sport; some schools give full colours and half colours.
- 20A pretended reason or false show, such as feigned friendship or concern, put forward to hide someone's real purpose or what is really going on.
The regime shut down independent newspapers under colour of protecting national security, though its real aim was to silence its critics.
Under colour of friendship, he borrowed thousands from her that he never meant to repay.
UsageUsually under colour of or under the colour of, then a noun or -ing form: under colour of friendship.
Similarguise, pretext, pretence, cover
Note
In David Baldacci's The Collectors, killings done under the colour of serving his country are murder passed off as duty. The cover here is a reason given; in the legal use it is a right claimed.
- 21A seeming legal right or official authority under which something is done.
The bailiffs seized the furniture under colour of a court order that had already expired.
An official who takes bribes under colour of his office betrays the very authority he claims.
UsageMostly in fixed legal phrases: under colour of law, under colour of office, under colour of a statute.
Note
To act under colour of law is to use an authority the law seems to give, whether or not it really gives it, which is why the Parliamentary Privilege Act 1770 can set colour beside pretence.
- 22
- 23In the armed forces, the ceremony held each morning at which the flag is hoisted.
- 24In heraldry, one of the recognised dark tinctures a coat of arms may be painted in, such as azure (blue), gules (red), sable (black) or vert (green).
- 25In linguistics, the characteristic sound quality of a given vowel, which marks it out from other vowels.
- 26Usually of a phoneme: to change the quality of another speech sound, especially a vowel.
- 27Gold found in the course of prospecting, especially in the form of small particles.
- 28In particle physics, a property of quarks and gluons, with three kinds named red, green and blue, that governs the strong force between them; quarks change colour by exchanging gluons. Also called colour charge.
- 29In graph theory, to give each vertex of a graph, or each region of a map, a colour so that no two adjacent vertices or bordering regions share one.
Showing meanings only.
Practice
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Origin
From Middle English colour or color, borrowed from Anglo-Norman colur, from Old French colour, from Latin color; it is a doublet of couleur. It displaced the older English word blee (from Old English blēo, 'colour') and partly replaced Old English hīew and its descendant hue, which is now less often used in this sense. The spelling color was popularised in modern American English by Noah Webster, to match the Latin original and make related words such as coloration and colorless consistent.