Colour

How to spell colour

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce colour

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does colour mean?

1. nounThe property of an object produced by the way it reflects light, such as red, blue, or green.
2. verbTo apply colour to something, or to influence how something is perceived.

Colour in a sentence

• noun

  The designer asked which colour the client preferred for the logo.

• verb

  Strong emotions can colour the way we remember an event.

• noun

  Each colour in the chart represents a different sales region.

• verb

  The children like to colour the drawings before bedtime.

Where does colour come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word descends from the Latin colour, which meant the hue or tint of a surface and also, more figuratively, the outward appearance of a thing. Latin colour is thought to be related to celare, meaning 'to hide' or 'to conceal', the idea being that colour is the covering that hides what lies beneath. English took the word from Old French colour during the 1200s, and that French spelling with -our is exactly why the British and Canadian form keeps the u. American English later trimmed it to 'color' under the reforms championed by Noah Webster, but the older -our ending survived on the British side of the Atlantic. The same Latin root still shows up in relatives such as 'coloration' and 'discolour', and the lingering u is the single feature that trips up writers who see the American spelling everywhere in films, software, and websites.

How the word is built

• colour (from Latin color: hue, tint)
• British -our spelling

British and American spelling

Colour is the British spelling. American English spells it color.