Colorful

How to spell colorful

8 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce colorful

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does colorful mean?

1. adjectiveHaving many bright colors, or being vivid and full of interesting variety.

Colorful in a sentence

• The market stalls were colorful with stacks of fresh fruit and flowers.

• She chose a colorful scarf to brighten up her plain gray coat.

Where does colorful come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word joins the noun 'color' with the native English suffix '-ful', meaning 'full of'. The first part traces back to the Latin color, which meant a hue or tint and was related to celare, 'to cover' or 'to conceal', the idea being that a color is a surface that covers what lies beneath. Latin color passed into Old French as colour and reached English in the 1300s, where it long kept the French-influenced 'u' spelling. The compound 'colorful' itself is a much later, largely nineteenth-century formation, built once the base word and the productive '-ful' ending were both well established. In American usage the simplified 'color' spelling, championed by Noah Webster in the early 1800s, dropped the 'u', giving the modern 'colorful'; British and Canadian writers keep the older 'colourful', and that single missing 'u' is the trap for anyone moving between the two systems.

How the word is built

• color (from Latin color: hue, tint)
• -ful (adjective suffix: full of)

British and American spelling

Colorful is the American spelling. British English spells it colourful.