Color

How to spell color

5 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce color

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does color mean?

1. nounThe quality of an object produced by the way it reflects light, seen as red, blue, green and so on.
2. verbTo apply or add hue to something, or to influence how something is perceived.

Color in a sentence

• noun

  The designer chose a warm color for the living room walls.

• verb

  A single bad review can color the way customers see a brand.

• noun

  Each color on the chart represents a different sales region.

• verb

  The children like to color the pictures in their workbooks.

Where does color come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word descends from the Latin color, which meant a hue or tint and was related to celare, meaning 'to hide' or 'to conceal', since color was thought of as the outer covering that veils a surface. It passed into Old French as colour and entered English in the 1200s carrying that French -our spelling, which is why the word still divides the dialects today. For centuries English writers used colour, but in the early 1800s the American lexicographer Noah Webster championed the trimmed-down color, arguing it was closer to the Latin source and simpler to spell. That deliberate reform is why American English settled on color while British and Canadian writing kept colour. The same Latin root survives in words like coloration and the artist's term coloratura, a reminder that the missing u is a historical choice rather than an error.

How the word is built

• color (from Latin color: hue, tint)
• no affix; the American spelling drops the British -our ending

British and American spelling

Color is the American spelling. British English spells it colour.