| 释义 |
▪ I. colour, color, n.1|ˈkʌlə(r)|
Forms: 3–6 colur, 4 colure, coulur, 4–7 coloure, 3– colour, 5– color. Also 4–7 collor, 5–6 colowr(e, 6 cooler, -ore, coulor(e, coullour, -or, cullor, -our, 6–7 coulour, -er, collour, culler.
[Early ME. colur, later colour, color, a. OF. color, culur, colur, later colour, coulour (retained in AFr.), couleur (= Pr., Sp. color, It. colore):—L. colōr-em. Latin long ō passed in OF. into a very close sound intermediate between ō and ū, both of which letters, and subsequently the digraph ou, were used to express it; in an accented syllable the sound at length changed to ö written eu, whence mod.F. couleur. The OE. word was híw, hue. Colour, corresponding to the late AFr., has been the normal spelling in Eng. from 14th c.; but color has been used occasionally, chiefly under L. influence, from 15th c., and is now the prevalent spelling in U.S.]
I. As a property or quality.
1. The quality or attribute in virtue of which objects present different appearances to the eye, when considered with regard only to the kind of light reflected from their surfaces.
The particular colour of a body depends upon the molecular constitution of its surface, as determining the character and number of the light-vibrations which it reflects. Subjectively, colour may be viewed as the particular sensation produced by the stimulation of the optic nerve by particular light-vibrations. This sensation can also be induced by other means, such as pressure of the eye-ball, or an electric current.
1398Trevisa Barth. De P.R. xix. viii. (1495) 869 Colour accordyth to lyghte as the doughter to the moder. c1532G. Du Wes Introd. Fr. in Palsgr. 920 Colour is lyght incorporate in a body visyble pure & clene. 1594T. B. La Primaud. Fr. Acad. ii. 71 This part of light that is vpon thicke bodies, is called colour. 1764Reid Inquiry vi. v. 179 Philosophers affirm that colour is not in bodies but in the mind; and the vulgar affirm that colour is not in the mind, but is a quality of bodies. 1856Ruskin Mod. Paint. III. iv. xiv. §42 Colour is the most sacred element of all visible things. 1869Tyndall Notes on Light 40 Colour is due to the extinction of certain constituents of the white light within the body, the remaining constituents which return to the eye imparting to the body its colour. 1875Jowett Plato (ed. 2) I. 274 Would you say that whiteness is colour or a colour?
2. a. A particular hue or tint, being one of the constituents into which white or ‘colourless’ light can be decomposed, the series of which constitutes the spectrum; also any mixture of these. In speaking of the colours of objects, black and white, in which the rays of light are respectively wholly absorbed and wholly reflected, are included.
Often used spec. of a hue or tint distinct from the prevailing tone, which may be black, white, or some positive colour. Thus in Bot. it is specifically used of any hue save green, ‘white being regarded as a colour, and green not’ (Treas. Bot. 1866).
accidental colours, complementary c.: see these words.
colour of brightness: a yellowish colour resulting from increased illumination.
constants of colour: numbers for the comparative measurement of the purity, brightness and hue of colours.
ecclesiastical colours or liturgical colours: the colours used in church-decoration or in ecclesiastical vestments.
fundamental colours, primary colours, or simple colours: formerly, the seven colours of the spectrum, viz. red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet; now, the three colours red, green, and violet (or, with painters, red, yellow, and blue), out of different combinations of which all the others are produced.
secondary colours: colours resulting from the mixture of two primary colours.
c1290Lives Saints (1887) 216 And axede him of ȝwuch colur were heuene op-riȝt þere. a1300Cursor M. 9913 (Cott.) Thre colurs o sun-dri heu [Gött. colouris, Fairf. colours]. 1483Cath. Angl. 86 A Culoure, color. Of diuerse color, discolor. 1552–3Inv. Ch. Goods Staffordsh. in Ann. Litchfield IV. 60 One cope of dyvers colowres of sylke. 1577B. Googe Heresbach's Husb. iv. (1586) 167 Hee changeth..like the Chamælion, to al colours of the Rainebow. 1599Thynne Animadv. (1875) 48 Darkyshe Coolor. 1605Camden Rem. 6 Depainted..in the alehouse coulours. 1650T. B. Worcester's Apoph. 80 Various both in shape and coulours. 1671Newton in Phil. Trans. VI. 3081 Colours are..Original and connate properties, which in divers Rays are divers. 1796H. Hunter tr. St. Pierre's Stud. Nat. (1799) I. 511 The seven primitive colours. Ibid. II. 64 Two extreme colours, white and black. 1863E. Atkinson tr. Ganot's Physics §555 From a mixture of red, green, and violet all possible colours may be constructed, and hence these three spectral colours are called the fundamental colours. 1884Graphic 8 Nov. 490/1 Grapes beginning to turn colour.
b. Heraldic tincture.
c1450Holland Howlat 420 Off metallis and colouris in tentfull atyr. 1486Bk. St. Albans, Her. A j a, It is shewyd by the forsayd colowris wych ben Worthy and wych ben Royall. 1659Vulgar Errours Censured v. §10. 96 Colour upon Colour is ill Heraldry. 1766–87Porny Heraldry 19 The Colours generally made use of in Heraldry are nine. 1882Cussans Hand-bk. Heraldry 50 The tinctures employed in Heraldry are of three kinds: Metals, Colours, and Furs.
c. spec. The hue of the darker (as distinguished from the ‘white’) varieties of mankind; often in phrase, a person (man, etc.) of colour: in America, esp. a person of Black descent.
[c1400Mandeville (Roxb.) vii. 24 Þe folk þat wones in þat cuntree er called Numidianes..þai er blakk of colour.] 1796B. Edwards St. Domingo i. (1801) 25 Three great classes: 1st pure whites, 2nd people of colour..3rd negroes and mulattoes..The class which..is called people of colour originates from an intermixture of the whites and the blacks. 1798Ferriar Illustr. Sterne ii. 43 Discussion of the causes of colour in negroes. 1803Naval Chron. IX. 111 The Bermudian pilots are men of colour. 1883Stevenson Treasure Isl. ii. vii. (1886) 57 She is a woman of colour. 1890Pall Mall G. 20 Jan. 2/1 Loudly did he bewail the difficulty of making ‘the colour’ stick to work.
d. fig., esp. in phrases, in which the literal sense is always present to the mind, as to cast or put false, lively, etc., colours upon; to paint in bright, dark, etc., colours; to see (a thing) in its true colours, etc.: cf. the senses under II.
1531Elyot Gov. i. xv, He wyll..sette a false colour of lernyng on propre wittes, whiche wyll be wasshed away with one shoure of raine. 1576Fleming Panoplie Ep. 377 To paint out that puisaunt Prince, in such lively colours as hee deserveth. 1699Bentley Phal. 540 He puts a false colour upon one part of his Argument. 1711Vind. Sacheverell 21 Charg'd with casting very odious and black Colours upon the Dissenters. 1737Whiston Josephus' Antiq. xvi. vii. §1 Desirous to put handsome colours on the death of Mariamne. 1797Godwin Enquirer i. ii. 8 Exhibit things in their true colours. 1849Grote Greece ii. xlviii. (1862) IV. 275 The bright colours and tone of cheerful confidence, which pervade the discourse.
3. Of the face or skin:
a. gen. Complexion, hue. to change colour, († colours): (a) to turn pale; (b) rarely, to turn red, to blush.
1297R. Glouc. (1724) 24 In þe World hire pere nas, So whit, ne of such colour. c1300K. Alis. 7315 Colour him chaungith sumdel for drede. a1400Chester Pl. (Shaks. Soc.) 91 Yf shee be freshe of collor. c1440York Myst. xxx. 41 The coloure of my corse is full clere. a1450Le Morte Arth. 2816 The blode alle coueryd hys coloure. 1523Ld. Berners Froiss. I. ccccl. 795 The duke a lytell chaunged colour. 1599Greene George a Greene Wks. (1861) 255 His colour looketh discontent. 1634Brereton Trav. (Chetham Soc.) 5 So apprehensive of the danger, that he changed colours.
b. spec. The ruddy hue of the cheeks, freshness of hue, as in to lose, regain, etc., colour. Said also of the ‘red face’ produced by blushing.
a1300K. Horn 16 He was whit so þe flur, Rose red was his colur. c1350Will. Palerne 881 He cast al his colour and bi-com pale. 1483Caxton Cato F iiij, They..lesen theyr colour and becomen sone olde. 1595Shakes. John iv. ii. 76 The colour of the king doth come, and go Betweene his purpose and his conscience. 1697Vanbrugh Relapse iii. iii, I need not ask you how you do, you have got so good a colour. 1708Lond. Gaz. No. 4427/16 A little pock-fretten, sometimes a colour in his Face. 1848Tennyson Gardener's Dau. 192 A word could bring the colour to my cheek. 1856Dickens Rogue's Life v, I saw her colour beginning to come back—the old bright glow returning to the..dusky cheeks.
c. See off colour.
4. a. spec. in Art. The general effect produced by all the colours of a picture; colouring. dead colour: the first laying-in of a painting.
1661Pepys Diary 13 Dec., There she sat the first time to be drawn..The dead colour of my wife is good above what I expected. 1784J. Barry Lect. Art vi. (1848) 224 A slight general dead colour of the whole. 1812Examiner 25 May 328/2 His chiaro-scuro and colour are..spread with so much amenity, that..harmony is the result. 1846Ruskin Mod. Paint. I. ii. i. vii. §21 A noble or brilliant work of colour. 1851― Stones Ven. I. App. xvii. 392 No colour is so noble as the colour of a good painting.
fig.1732Pope Ess. Man ii. 112 Lights and shades, whose well-accorded strife Gives all the strength and colour of our life. 1878Morley Carlyle Crit. Misc. Ser. i. 189 To take all breadth, and colour..out of our judgments of men.
b. The representation of colour by contrasts of light and dark in an engraving or monochrome.
1784J. Barry Lect. Art vi. (1848) 219 What is called the colour of a print..The phrase is improper and inaccurate..What those meant who first adopted the phrase is the chiaroscuro, or light and dark, in contradistinction to mere light and shade. 1869Daily News 22 Dec., By his manner of etching he [Cruikshank] is able to produce the most admirable effects of what engravers call ‘colour’.
c. Typogr. The (relative) blackness of printed type.
1808C. Stower Printer's Grammar vii. 211 It is a rule with careful pressmen, not to give proofs a high colour. 1888J. Southward in Encycl. Brit. XXIII. 710/1 Comparing the old face and the modern characters, the latter are more regular in size, lining, setting, and colour. 1898― Mod. Printing I. xxii. 141 The proportion of the thick to the thin strokes constitutes what typefounders call the colour of the letter. 1959S. Morison Typographic Design 25 The result is a quality of colour and inking that is specific to the hand press inasmuch as it has depth.
d. spec. in Photogr. and related subjects. Used esp. attrib. of the production of photographs, films, etc., in colour (see 18 b).
1872[see colour photography, 17 b below]. 1931Ann. Reg. 1930 48 Colour has been coming almost imperceptibly, and the public hardly notice whether a film is in colour or black and white. 1957E. S. Bomback Photogr. in Colour i. 11 (heading) Colour by subtraction. Ibid. 12 (heading) Cameras for Colour.
5. Phrenol. Short for ‘Faculty or organ of colour’.
1840Penny Cycl. XVIII. 116/1 (List of phrenological organs) Colour, Locality, Calculation, Order. 1890Mary O. Stanton Syst. Physiog. I. 410 Color is a primitive faculty.
II. As a thing material.
6. a. (in pl.) A coloured device, badge, or dress, serving to distinguish or identify an individual or the members of a party. In early use applied to the cognizance or insignia of a knight; now commonly of the coloured symbols of colleges, clubs, jockeys, etc., and of the rosettes and ribbons worn as party-badges. Sometimes less concretely, as in ‘the Liberal colours here are blue and buff’.
c1400Destr. Troy 5462 All hor colouris to ken were of clene yalow. c1420Anturs of Arth. xxx, The knyȝte in his colurs was armit ful clene. 1589Pasquil's Ret. D iij b, Aduance my collours on the top of the steeple. 1781Gibbon Decl. & F. III. 215 Agitated with hope and fear, for the success of the colours which they espoused. 1828Scott F.M. Perth xxxi, The servants..wore the colours of the Prince's household. 1852Thackeray Esmond i. xii. (1876) 111 When heads of families fall out..their dependants wear the one or the other party's colour. 1873Slang Dict., Colour, a handkerchief worn by each of the supporters of a professional athlete on the day of a match. Mod. Election Notice. Canvassers are requested to wear their colours.
fig.1685Baxter Paraph. N.T. Matt. iii. 13–4 note, Christ as the General, will wear the same Colours with his Soldiers. 1885Law Times LXXIX. 399/2 The majority of his employés are of an opposite colour to himself.
b. In phrases, as to come out in one's true colours, to show one's colours, etc. To this sense prob. belong the earlier examples of to fight, etc., under false colours, which at a later date became associated with the next sense.
c1400Destr. Troy 11496 He set hom a cas, What fortune might falle vndur fals colour. a1688Bunyan Jerusalem Sinner Saved (1886) 81 Feign not..but go in thy colours to Jesus Christ. 1840Dickens Old C. Shop lxv. 294 [He] who didn't venture..to come out in his true colours. 1884Gladstone in Standard 29 Feb. 2/7 Opponents who may find some difficulty in showing their colours.
c. pl. The distinctive colours of a school, college, club, etc., team, crew, or the like, as conferred to denote selection as a representative member; esp. in to get one's colours.
1896Westm. Gaz. 11 May 4/1 Since the reduction..of the number and variety of colours to be given, interest in games..has deteriorated... ‘To get his colours’ is an ambition which every boy should look forward to. 1935W. de la Mare Early One Morning 225 The schoolboy who collects nothing at all (except good or bad marks, or ‘colours’, or certificates) must be an odd fish.
d. sing. One who has gained his colours.
1955Times 6 July 4/5 Cambridge..will start as favourites this year as they have two old colours in R.C. Hampel and M.H. Searby.
7. a. (gen. in pl.) A flag, ensign, or standard of a regiment or a ship. In quots. 1667, 1719 a colours occurs: mod. military use has a colour.
1590Sir J. Smyth Disc. Weapons 2 b, Their Ensignes they will not call by that name, but by the name of Colours. 1593Shakes. 3 Hen. VI, ii. ii. 173 Sound Trumpets, let our bloody Colours waue. 1598Barret Theor. Warres ii. i. 20 We English-men do call them [ensigns] of late Colours, by reason of the variety of colours they be made of. 1626Capt. Smith Accid. Yng. Seamen 17 A suit of sayles..pendants and colours. 1667Earl of Orrery State Lett (1743) II. 163 It is a grief to me..that a viscount should, only to live, carry a colours. 1695Lond. Gaz. No. 3042/2 To go out with Colours Flying and Drums Beating. a1719Addison (J.), An author compares a ragged coin to a tattered colours. 1720Lond. Gaz. No. 5839/1 She went a cruizing under Spanish Colours. 1799Wellington in Gurw. Disp. I. 31 In less than 10 minutes..the British colors were planted on the summit of the breach. 1802Home Hist. Reb. Scot. iii, The standard..was about twice the size of an ordinary pair of colours. 1830Campbell Dict. Mil. Sc. 39 Colours..are the two silken flags carried by the Senior Ensigns in each Regiment of Infantry. The first, called the King's Colour..the Second, or Regimental Colour. 1832Southey Hist. Penins. War III. 738 Downie, seizing a colour, and waving it. 1836Marryat Midsh. Easy xxx, The stranger had hoisted the English colours.
fig.1598Shakes. Merry W. iii. iv. 85, I must aduance the colours of my loue. 1692Bentley Boyle Lect. ix. 307 They fight under Jewish colours.
b. Hence applied to the regiment. Now obs. except as retained in the expressions to join the colours, desert one's colours, etc., referred to prec.
1590Sir J. Smyth Disc. Weapons 2/6 Colours..is by them so fondlie & ignorantly given, as if they..should (in stead of Ensignes) be asked how manie Colours of footmen there were in the Armie. 1633Stafford Pac. Hib. (1821) 197 Or else to repayre to his Colours. Ibid. 337 The Enemy..marched with fiue and twentie Colours towards the Towne. 1646Vicars God's Ark in Carlyle Cromwell (1871) I. 155 Being 74 Colours of horse, and 21 colours of Dragoons, in all 95 colours. 1722De Foe Col. Jack (1840) 126, I..was run from my colours. 1848Macaulay Hist. Eng. I. 297 A soldier..deserting his colours.
c. An ensign's commission, ensigncy: generally a pair of colours. arch.
1722De Foe Col. Jack (1840) 113, 100l. being sufficient to buy colours in any new regiment. 1747Garrick Miss in her Teens 1, Purchas'd me a pair of colours at my own request. 1856J. W. Cole Brit. Gen. Penins. War I. i. 7 An ensigncy, or, as it is figuratively called, a pair of colours, in the 51st. 1871Holme Lee Miss Barrington I. vi. 84 Wait till this little Jack of yours gets a pair of colours.
d. In various phrases, originally literal, as † to fear no colours, to fear no foe, hence gen. to have no fear; to come off with flying colours; to stick to one's colours; to nail one's colours to the mast; to hang out false colours, etc. Also see false a. 14 a, flying ppl. a. 3 b, and nail v. 1 d.
1596Nashe Saffron Walden E iv b, I perceiue thou fearest no colours. 1601Shakes. Twel. N. i. v. 10, I can tell thee where yt saying was borne, of I feare no colours..In the warrs. 1682N. O. Boileau's Lutrin ii. 175 Come, fear no Colours! The end the Act will hallow! 1692Locke Toleration iii. viii, It may..bring a Man off with flying Colours. 1711Steele Spect. No. 52 ⁋3 Our Female Candidate..will no longer hang out false Colours. 1844Sir R. Peel in Croker Papers (1884) III. xxiii. 15, I never heard him [Ashburton] make a speech in the course of which he did not nail, unnail, renail, and unnail again his colours. 1885Pall Mall G. 5 Nov. 7/1 The obstinacy with which Prince Alexander is sticking to his colours. 1888Ibid. 10 Nov. 11/1 He hastened..to nail his colours to the compromise of 1870.
e. spec. U.S. (See quot.)
1891H. Patterson Illustr. Naut. Dict. 352 Colors, the national ensign. In port colors are made at 8 a.m. and hauled down at sunset. When at sea colors are shown upon falling in with another vessel.
f. pl. A nautical ceremony at which the (national) flag is saluted as it is raised at sunrise or lowered at sunset.
1909Webster, Color 8. pl. U.S. Navy. A salute to the flag accompanied by music at 8 a.m. and sunset, at hoisting and lowering it. 1942G. Hackforth-Jones One-One-One xv. 130 The duty signalman..bent the White Ensign on to the halliards of the Ensign staff. Then he approached the Sub and reported ‘Five minutes to Colours, Sir.’
8. a. A colouring matter, pigment, paint (see quot. 1859). With many defining words (which see), as adjective-, body-, broken-, fresco-, ground-, moist-, oil-, spirit-, substantive-, water-colour, etc.
1580Lyly Euphues (Arb.) 445 They increase their fauours with faire water, you maintaine yours with painters colours. 1626Bacon Sylva (1677) §298 Painters colours ground, and Ashes, do better incorporate with Oyl. 1660T. Willsford Scales Commerce ii. iv. 26 Common colours, as red Oaker, Umber, red and white Lead, etc. 1721Lond. Gaz. No. 5962/3 Mr Le Blon gives Notice, That..Pictures..Printed in Colours, after his new Invention, under His Majesty's Letters Patents..are..to be sold. 1784J. Barry Lect. Art vi. (1848) 217 Compound, half, or broken colour which soften and still their difference. 1859Gullick & Timbs Paint. 23 ‘Colours’ are generally understood to mean the pigments applied to the picture.
b. Glass-painting. (See quot.)
1914Jrnl. R. Soc. Arts May 568 The composition of the vitreous ‘enamel brown’, or ‘colour’, as it is termed by glass-painters, with which the outlines, tones, and shadows in a glass-painting are produced.
9. pl. Coloured dresses or dress-materials.
1716–8Lady M. W. Montague Lett. I. x. 35 The..maids of honour..she suffers to go in colours.
10. a. Mining. (See quots.)
1859Cornwallis New World I. 118 Carts..going to the creek to have the colour—that is to say, the gold washed out. 1876J. Weiss Wit, Hum. & Shaks. ii. 39 Miners in the West use the word ‘color’ for the finest gold in the ground. 1881Raymond Mining Gloss., Color..A particle of metallic gold.. Prospectors say, e.g., ‘The dirt gave me so many colors to the panful’.
b. Cf. the following colloquial use (sense 2).
1718Gordon in Cordial Low Spirits 33, I have never seen the colour of Mr. Baskett's money. 1852Dickens Bleak Ho. II. 25 (Hoppe) He had never yet seen the colour of his money.
III. Figurative senses.
11. a. Outward appearance, show, aspect, semblance of (something): generally (as in 12), that which serves to conceal or cloak the truth, or to give a show of justice to what is in itself unjustifiable. Often in colour of law, colour of reason.
1297R. Glouc. (1724) 313 To bynyme hem her erytage..myd wuch treson, bote he adde som colour of ryȝte. c1325Poem temp. Edw. II (Camden Soc.) 280 Al his contrefaiture is colour of sinne. 1530Proper Dialogue (1863) 28 This hath no coloure of almesse. 1597Bacon (title), A Table of Coulers, or apparances of good and euill. 1642Melton Argt. conc. Militia 22 To defend them, without any colour of Law or justice. 1754Sherlock Disc. (1759) I. x. 296 With what Colour of Reason can the pretended Miracles be brought into this Question? 1863H. Cox Instit. i. ix. 218 The general heads of breaches of privilege..are these three: 1st Evasion, 2nd Force, 3rd Colour of Law.
b. A fiction, an allegory.
1509Hawes Past. Pleas. ix. i, They beleve in no maner of wyse That under a colour a trouth may aryse.
12. a. A show of reason; a specious or plausible reason or ground; fair pretence, pretext, cloak.
1429Archives Grocer's Comp. ii. 190 Þt no man selle no ware uppon no Sonday nor uppon none haly daye..by no manner of colour þat may be devysed. 1592Greene Upst. Courtier in Harl. Misc. (Malh.) II. 244 You carry your pack but for a coulour, to shadow your other villanies. 1617Fletcher Valentinian iv. iii. 8 What has Aecius done, to be destroy'd? At least, I would have a colour. You have more..he is a traitor. 1765Burke Corr. (1844) I. 64 No man should have even a colour to assert that I received a compensation. 1818Jas. Mill Brit. India II. iv. v. 166 An enterprise..which..afforded a colour for detaining the troops.
†b. Sometimes the meaning became simply ‘allegeable ground or reason’, excuse. Obs.
c1380Wyclif Wks. (1880) 432 Ȝif a prest myȝte be two men..it were to hym a coulur to take ful hire of two men. c1460Fortescue Abs. & Lim. Mon. (1714) 107 Havyng no Colour of grutchyng. 1529More Comf. agst. Trib. (1573) 50 In these two things may you catche most colour to compare the wealthy man's merite with the merite of tribulation. 1616Beaum. & Fl. Knt. Malta i. i. 18 Did I attempt her with a thread-bare name..She might with colour disallow my suit. 1724A. Collins Gr. Chr. Relig. 208 For which he has as little Colour, as the Samaritans themselves.
c. esp. in Law. An apparent or prima facie right, as in colour of title. Sometimes in a bad sense, as in colour of office: see quot. 1641. Also spec., in Pleading, ‘a probable but really false plea, the design of which was to draw the decision of the case from the jury to the judges, by making the point to be decided appear to be one of law and not of fact’: see quots. 1607 and 1824.
[1366Year-Bk. 40 Edw. III (1679) 23 Kirton. Le plee n'est pas ascun maner de barre, car il n'ad conus en nous ascun maner de colour.] 1531Dial. on Laws Eng. ii. liv. (1638) 163 The plaintife claiming by a colour of a deed of feoffement. 1568Grafton Chron. II. 175 Robert de Bruce..although he had some colour of title, yet he discended of the second daughter..and so his clayme tooke no place. 1574tr. Littleton's Tenures 86 a, He hathe colour of enter as heyre to his father. 1584D. Powel Lloyd's Cambria 74, I could never find what Coulor or Pretense of title this [man] had. 1607J. Cowell Interpr. (1637), Colour, signifieth in the common law a probable plee but in truth false, and hath this end to draw the triall of the cause from the jury to the judges. 1641Termes de la Ley 65, Colour of Office..signifies an act evill done by the countenance of an Office..whereas the office is but a vaile to the falshood. 1721St. German's Doctor & Stud. 337 The two questions before rehearsed of colours in Assise. 1768Blackstone Comm. III. 309 An appearance or colour of title, bad indeed in point of law, but of which the jury are not competent judges. 1824H. J. Stephen Pleading (1843) 233 The meaning of the rule that pleadings in confession and avoidance should give colour, is that they should confess the matter adversely alleged, to such an extent at least as to admit some apparent right in the opposite party which requires to be encountered and avoided by the allegation of new matter. 1886F. W. Maitland in Law Q. Rev. Oct. 483 Possession coupled with..good faith and colour of title..would have certain legal effects.
d. Phrases. under colour of: under pretext or pretence of, under the mask or alleged authority of. † Also with by, in, upon, with colour. without colour: without dissembling or disguise.
c1340Hampole Psalter cxix. 2 Swikil tunge [lingua dolosa]..þat vndire colour of goed counsaile bryngis til syn. 1401Pol. Poems (1859) II. 16 Antichrist..by colour of holines..deceiving Christs church. 1461Paston Lett. No. 384 II. 4 Brybers that wold a robbed a ship undyr color of my Lord of Warwyk. 1494Fabyan vii. 473 Without fraude, colour, or disceyte. 1523Ld. Berners Froiss. I. xlvi. 63 He sent vnto them a prelate vnder the colour of the pope. Ibid. I. ccccix. 712 The king..may..assemble great puyssaunce..in the colour of this treatie. 1553Q. Mary in Strype Eccl. Mem. III. App. i. 3 By colour of the authority of the same King. a1556Cranmer Wks. I. 21 Answer me directly without colour, whether it be so or not. 1582N. Lichefield tr. Castaneda's Hist. E. Ind. 866 The Moores contrarie to his commaundement had bought spices vnder a coulour. 1590Marlowe Edw. II, i. iv. Wks. (Rtldg.) 191/2 Then may we with some colour rise in arms. 1591Shakes. Two Gent. iv. ii. 3. 1611 Bible Acts xxvii. 30. a 1718 Penn Life Wks. 1726 I. 27 It is the worst oppression that is done by Colour of justice. 1732Berkeley Alciphr. v. §10 There have been received, under the colour of religion, a world of fables. 1833H. Martineau Manch. Strike ix. 108 A present..given under colour of enabling him to appear more respectably.
e. to give colour: to give a specious appearance or verisimilitude; to afford ground or pretext; † to take colour with: to side ostensibly with (cf. the verb, sense 6). Also, to lend colour (to).
1771Wesley Wks. (1872) V. 454 St. Paul..gives you no colour for making void the law. 1776P. Schuyler in Sparks Corr. Amer. Rev. (1853) I. 249 Your Excellency's instructions to him gave..not the least color for it. 1790Paley Horæ Paul. i. 2 In order to give colour and probability to the fraud. 1845–6Trench Huls. Lect. Ser. ii. ii. 171 The slightest hint that seems to give a colour to..hope. 1861Maine Anc. Law iv. 110 The Emperor..was forced to take colour with the church against the reformers. 1911J. S. Huxley in Cornhill Mag. XXX. 500 The unicellular organisms..do not in their normal processes lend much colour to the view that death is but an accident. 1921Sapir Language vi. 155 Facts such as these seem to lend color to the suspicion that..we are confronted by something deeper. 1932D. L. Sayers Have his Carcase xxxiv. 443 Young Simons recognised something familiar in his face, which may have been a family resemblance. But it may quite likely have been the other way: the fact that he had it may have lent colour to the tradition.
13. pl. Rhetorical modes or figures; ornaments of style or diction, embellishments. (Cf. Scaliger Poet. lib. iii. c. xxx.) Now only as fig.
c1386Chaucer Sqr.'s T. 31 It muste ben a Rethor excellent, That coude his colours longing for that art, If he shuld hire descriven ony part. ― Frankl. Prol. 51, I lerned neuere Rethorik..Colours ne knowe I none. c1449Pecock Repr. ii. xviii. 256 Colouris and figuris of spechis. c1460Sir R. Ros La Belle Dame Sanz Mercy 844 in Pol. Rel. & L. Poems (1866) 80 Ful destitute of eloquence, of metre, and of coloures. 1586A. Day Eng. Secretary ii. (1625) 77 A Scheme..for the excellency thereof is called the ornament, light and colours of Rhetoricall speech. 1779Johnson L.P., Milton (1816) 137 The colours of the diction seem not sufficiently discriminated. 1876Trevelyan Life & Lett. Macaulay I. i. 16 Novelists who have more colours in their vocabulary than Turner had on his palette.
†14. In 16–17th c. Sc. writers: Rhythm, metre.
1513Douglas æneis i. Prol. 354 Sum tyme the colour will caus a litle additioun. 1560Rolland Crt. Venus iv. 740 Haltand verse quhair cullour dois nat hald. 1585James I Ess. Poesie (Arb.) 57 First, ze sall keip iust cullouris. 1619Drummond of Hawthornden Conv. B. Jonson Wks. 224 He..said, that verses stood by sense, without either colours or accent.
15. a. Music. ‘Clang-tint’ (see clang n. 3), timbre. Also, more generally, variety of expression in a musical composition (cf. next).
1597Morley Introd. Mus. 166 To admit great absurdities in his musicke, altering both time, tune, cullour, ayre and what soeuer else. 1866Engel Nat. Mus. v. 179 Almost every instrument has its peculiar colour of sound. 1876Bernstein's Five Senses 247 Still they give to the fundamental tone a peculiar character: its quality or colour. 1887Daily Tel. 14 Oct. 3 He has a keen sense of orchestral effect, a capital eye for colour. 1890Glasgow Her. 19 May 9/2 New theories as to the causes of the varieties of tone colour or ‘timbre’ of different musical instruments.
b. Phonetics. The characteristic quality of a vowel sound; timbre.
1934H. C. Wyld Best English 603 It is the pitch which produces the distinguishing quality, character, and colour of a vowel sound in speech. 1948M. Joos Acoustic Phonetics 46 We cannot use the musical term timbre for linguistically significant vowel quality..; instead we shall use the term color. Linguistically diacritic color is based, then, on the profile of the spectrum.
16. a. (an extension of sense 11). General ‘complexion’ or tone; character, kind.
1600Shakes. A.Y.L. i. ii. 107 You haue lost much good sport. Sport: of what colour? Ibid. iii. ii. 435 Boyes and women are for the most part, cattle of this colour. 1605― Lear ii. ii. 145 This is a Fellow of the selfe same colour [Qq. nature], Our Sister speakes of. 1663J. Spencer Prodigies (1665) 337 The Reason he gives..is much of color with that of our Adversaries. 1781J. Moore View Soc. It. (1790) II. xlvii. 26 [The books] formed a strong contrast with the colour of his mind. 1849Thackeray Pendennis xxxvii, Pendennis..took his colour very readily from his neighbour. 1870Stanhope Hist. Eng. I. i. 15 This first triumph of the Tories gave as it were its colour to the entire Session.
b. The shade of meaning associated with words.
1657Cromwell Sp. 13 Apr. (Carlyle), Nor can it be urged that my words have the least colour that way. 1822Procter (B. Cornwall) Poems, Love cured by Kindness, Words of an opposite colour. 1826Syd. Smith Wks. (1859) II. 119/1 Conversations..to which he could have given another colour and complexion.
c. Words, descriptions, or attendant features of an evocative nature; local colour (see local a. 4 e (b)). Also attrib.
1938E. Waugh Scoop v. 87 We're paid to supply news... Of course there's colour. Colour is just a lot of bull's-eyes about nothing. Ibid. 89 They gave Jakes the Nobel Peace Prize for his harrowing descriptions of the carnage—but that was colour stuff. 1953Berg Dict. New Words (ed. 2) 57/2 Colour, in a programme: subsidiary features added to evoke, or enhance interest; e.g. fifteen minutes of colour before the kick-off. 1968F. Mullally Munich Involvement iii. 19 Sullivan had completed his colour notes..and had cabled a short teaser story to London for the next day's edition. 1968Listener 1 Aug. 142/1 We all spent the rest of the day rewriting the sheafs of irrelevant colour stories which we'd all been working on for weeks.
17. Particle Physics. A quantized property of quarks which differentiates them into three varieties (called blue, green, and red) and is thought to be the source of the strong interaction.
1973L. W. Jones in Physics Today May 31/1 An embarrassing situation arises with the spin-½ quarks and the Pauli exclusion principle: One solution to this is to suggest that each quark is in turn a triplet with a ‘color’ quantum number (say, red, white, or blue), so that there might be now nine fundamental quarks as well as their nine antiquarks. 1979Sci. Amer. Aug. 157/1 For interactions of quarks the property analogous to electric charge is called color, and for that reason the theory of quark interactions has been named quantum chromodynamics. 1981M. Gell-Mann in J. H. Mulvey Nature of Matter viii. 172 Whereas the photon, responsible for electromagnetism, is itself electrically neutral, the gluons, which carry the colour force, are themselves colourful and couple to that force.
IV. attrib. and Comb.
18. a. General: as colour-balance, colour-brilliance, colour-chart, colour-chord, colour-circle, colour-combination, colour-consciousness, colour-contrast, colour-diagram, colour-equation, colour-expanse, colour-faculty, colour-harmony, colour-melody, colour-music, colour-name, colour-note, colour-pattern, colour-perception, colour-relation, colour-reproduction, colour-scale [scale n.3 5 b], colour-sensation, colour-stimulus, colour-suite, colour-vision, colour-word, etc.; colour-coated, colour-correct, colour-fading adjs. Also (see 2 c) colour-domination, colour-dread, colour prejudice, colour problem, colour question; colour-conscious, colour-prejudiced adjs.; (in sense 8) colour-bag, colour-case, colour-grinder, colour-lake, colour-maker, colour-making, colour-manufactory, colour-mill, colour-seller; (in sense 7) colour-bearer, colour-chest, etc.
1841–4Emerson Ess. Art Wks. (Bohn) I. 152 They..console themselves with *colour-bags and blocks of marble.
1913A. H. Munsell (title) *Color balance illustrated. An introduction to the Munsell system. 1953Colour Terms Sci. & Industry (B.S.I.) 14 Colour balance, the relationship between the overall intensities of the different colour images in a colour reproduction.
1948W. McDougall Introd. Soc. Psychol. (ed. 29) iii. 61 No more..than a totally *colour-blind person can be made to understand the experience of colour-sensation.
1862W. M. Rossetti in Fraser's Mag. July 74 The multiplicity and *Colour-brilliance of the Scene.
1856Lever Martins of Cro' M. 482 Hold that *colour-case for me.
1876*Color-chart [see colour triangle]. 1954A. G. L. Hellyer Encycl. Garden Work 8/1 Reagents for the barium sulphate colour test, with a suitable colour-chart, can be purchased from chemists who specialize in horticultural sundries.
1867Smyth Sailor's Word-bk., *Colour-chests, chests appropriated to the reception of flags for making signals.
1884St. James' Gaz. 10 May 6/2 A warm green, which, with the red gold of her hair, makes up a *colour-chord as simple as it is effective.
1876*Color-circle [see colour triangle]. 1936Discovery Sept. 292/1 ‘Colour-circles’, showing complementaries opposite one another, are of great value in training the colour-sense.
1959Records of Bucks. XVI. 248 Local types of *colour-coated ware.
1895Montgomery Ward Catal. 4/3 *Color combinations in the figures are heliotrope, black and dull green; pink and black; [etc.]. 1936Burlington Mag. Feb. 74/2 All these pictures already show many extraordinary qualities in..their colour-combinations.
1952P. Abrahams Path of Thunder iii. i. 213 And she's not *colour-conscious, Celia realized with dismay.
1946‘G. Orwell’ in Observer 24 Feb. 3/5 The importance of Asiatic nationalism and *colour-consciousness. 1953P. Abrahams Return to Goli vi. 205 Kenyatta was delicately sensitive to the slightest hint of colour consciousness. 1957E. S. Bomback Photogr. in Colour i. 9 We live in an age of colour-consciousness. This applies not only to clothes..it applies to the home in the form of gaily coloured plastics.
1890W. James Princ. Psychol. II. xx. 244 The so-called simultaneous *color-contrast, by which one color modifies another alongside.
1889*Colour-correct [see orthochromatic a.].
1889J. J. Thomas Froudacity 193 Advocacy of *colour-domination.
Ibid. 199 To reinfuse the ancient *colour-dread into minds which had formerly been forced to entertain it.
1879O. N. Rood Chromatics xvii. 298 A delicate *colour-emphasis is by no means easy of attainment.
1932H. H. Price Perception vi. 143 ‘We straight off mistake a colour for a body’ (where ‘colour’ means ‘*colour-expanse’).
1600Dr. Dodypoll i. i. in Bullen O. Pl. III. 103 Women with their *coullour-fading cheekes.
1825Nicholson Oper. Mech. 455 His *colour-grinder has ground the quantity of colour which used to serve him per day in three hours. 1859G. A. Sala Tw. round Clock 239 The scene-painter..bids his colour-grinder clean his boots.
1870S. H. Hodgson Theory of Practice I. 149 The tones and *colour-harmonies of music calling up emotions. 1890O. Wilde in 19th Cent. July 144 New and curious colour-harmonies of blue and green. 1937Burlington Mag. July 46/2 Titian..by his power and the musical quality of his colour-harmony.
1889tr. Benedikt's Coal-Tar Colours 26 Generally known as a *colour-lake and not as a colouring matter proper.
1552Huloet Dict. s.v. *Coloure maker, colorificus.
1794G. Adams Nat. & Exp. Philos. II. xx. 370 The arts of *colour-making and dyeing.
1796Hull Advertiser 12 Mar. 2/1 Buildings now used as a *Colour Manufactory..Also the *Colour Mill and Utensils.
1879O. N. Rood Chromatics xviii. 316 The poetry of colour which leads the artist..to seize on *colour-melodies as they occur in nature.
1924R. M. Ogden tr. Koffka's Growth of Mind v. 268 A colourless object is never given a *colour-name.
1924C. L. Morgan in J. H. Muirhead Contemp. Brit. Philos. 290 In vision..there is also the *colour-pattern. 1937Discovery Feb. 63/2 Size of wings, colour-patterns.
1879G. Allen Col. Sense i. 2 The growth of a distinctive *colour-perception.
1905W. B. Where White Man Treads 134 In the case of the Maori, this is deterred by a *colour prejudice. 1909M. Driver Candles in Wind xi. 107 A rough-and-ready bachelor, devoid of colour prejudice. 1932J. R. Ackerley Hindoo Holiday i. 127 Having interpreted perhaps my coldness as colour prejudice or..conscious racial superiority. 1939J. S. Marais Cape Coloured People i. 4 Colour prejudice and the attitude of mind that regards the coloured or black man as a mere instrument to serve the ends of the white man are by no means peculiar to white people whose ancestors owned slaves.
1958Church Times 21 Nov. 6/3 The dilemma confronting priests of the greatest goodwill, whose pastoral responsibilities for a white flock in a *colour-prejudiced country appear to come into direct conflict with what their conscience..tells them is right.
1908S. A. Barnett Let. 2 Feb. in H. Barnett Canon S.A.B. (1918) II. 329 The real problem is the *colour problem. Have you read Olivier's book on Jamaica? 1909State II. 751 (title) Black and White in the Southern States of America. The Colour Problem. By William Archer. 1958Times 4 Sept. 11/3 The time has come to admit that there is a colour problem in our midst.
1922S. G. Millin Adam's Rest ii. 159, I haven't been in South Africa much more than a year, and I can't quite appreciate the attitude of people here towards the *colour question.
1927R. H. Wilenski Mod. Movement in Art. 129 The use of *colour-relations..serves only as an agent in the description.
1906Burlington Mag. Oct. 47/1, The Medici prints..will undoubtedly represent a great advance upon anything which has yet been done in *colour reproduction. 1935Ibid. Nov. 233/2 The colour-reproductions..inevitably give but little idea of the texture..of the originals.
1884H. W. Vogel in Brit. Jrnl. Photogr. 6 June 360/2 The accompanying photograph of the *colour scale, when compared with the reproduction [etc.]. 1936Discovery Apr. 114/1 The latter [sc. Helmholtz] formulated a colour-scale, in the proper order, and extending about a ‘fourth’ beyond the musical octave.
1708Lond. Gaz. No. 4486/4 Francis Moore..*Colour-seller.
1883F. H. Bradley Logic II. ii. i. 277 To verify in actual observation the fact of *colour-sensations devoid of all extension.
1862R. H. Patterson Ess. Hist. & Art 15 (What every one who has pressed his fingers upon his eyes must know) that sensations of colour may be excited..independently of any *colour-stimulus.
1817R. Jameson Char. Min. 83 A *Colour-Suite of Minerals, made under the eye of Werner.
1882Syd. Soc. Lex., *Colour vision, the recognition of colour by the eye.
b. (in sense 4 d), pertaining or relating to the production of photographs, films, etc., in colour, as colour camera, colour film (see 18), colour negative, colour photo, colour photograph, colour photographer, colour photography, colour picture, colour print, colour printing, colour rendering, colour slide, colour snap, colour television (see 18), colour transparency.
1893Jrnl. Soc. Arts XLI. 664/1 Before proceeding to describe the colour-camera.
1957R. W. G. Hunt Reprod. Colour vii. 62 If several colour photographs are wanted of the same scene, it is convenient to make first a colour negative, from which..as many positives as are required can be made.
1937Discovery Jan. 25/2 We must use the unleashed colour-photo camera in accordance with the recognised principles of black-and-white photography.
Ibid. Nov. p. xcvi/1 Remarkable colour-photographs. 1957Colour photograph [see colour negative].
1939Emanuel & Dash All-in-One Camera-Book 118 There is no lack of subjects for the amateur colour photographer.
1872Jrnl. Chem. Soc. XXV. 30 The colour obtained in so-called colour-photography. 1957W. D. Wright in R. W. G. Hunt Reprod. Colour 5 The development of colour photography and colour television.
1912F. A. Talbot Moving Pict. xxvi. 289 Ways and means of taking colour pictures direct from Nature. 1937Ann. Reg. 1936 45 Two British made colour pictures were completed but not shown.
1893Jrnl. Soc. Arts XLI. 664/1 The production of a triple photograph..by the superposition of three transparent colour-prints. 1957Colour print [see colour transparency].
1940A. L. M. Sowerby Wall's Dict. Photogr. (ed. 15) 146 Colour printing on paper is a ‘subtractive’ process.
1937Discovery Nov. 353/1 Fast panchromatic plates are improving colour-rendering.
1951Alaska Sportsman XVII. vii. 50 (Advt.), Original 35 mm colorslides of Alaska. 1957E. S. Bomback Photogr. in Colour v. 42 The reversal-type colour film with the projected colour slide as its end product.
1928Daily Tel. 4 Dec. 17/2 The sensitive material in the ‘Coloursnap’ process is in the form of a three-ply film. 1963Times Lit. Suppl. 25 Oct. 869/3 Kenny is..happy with..his colour-snaps.
1915Photo-Era July 54/1 The exhibition will be divided into three sections: pictorial, color-transparencies, and a third..color-prints. 1957E. S. Bomback Photogr. in Colour x. 105 The ideal colour transparency for a colour print is one having a moderate brightness range..and well-balanced colour rendering.
19. Special combs.: colour atlas, a chart giving examples of a series of shades of colour; colour bar, legal or social distinction between ‘whites’ and coloured people; colour book, a book with illustrations in colour; colour-cake [cake n. 4], a cake of coloured paint; colour card, a card bearing samples of paint-colours; colour-cell, a cell in animal tissue containing colouring matter, a pigment-cell; colour-change, the change in the colour of its coat, skin, etc., to be in accord with its surroundings, made by a beast, bird, etc., by protective instinct; hence colour-changing vbl. n., the ability to change or the act of changing colour in this way; colour code, a guide or code using certain colours as a standard method of identification, as in coloured coverings for electrical wirings, etc.; so colour-code v., colour-coded adj.; colour correction [correction 7 b], of a lens (see quots.); so colour-corrected adj.; colour-defective n. and a., (one who is) wholly or partially colour-blind; colour-difference, a difference between colours; spec. applied attrib. to a signal used to obtain the correct proportion of colours in a colour-television transmission; colour disc, a disc with a series of colours arranged in sectors; also, each of the discs of a separate colour used with a colour-mixer; colour-discrimination, (a) the ability to discriminate between various colours; (b) unfavourable treatment of people of a different colour; colour doctor Calico-printing (see quots.); colour dusting, the application of finely ground colours to ware by means of a wad of cotton-wool; hence colour duster, a worker who performs this operation; colour-fast a., dyed in unfadeable colours; hence colour-fastness; colour film, (a) a cinema film produced in natural colours; (b) a film suitable for producing colour photographs; colour-filter Photogr., a filter consisting of a transparent material adapted to prevent the passage of certain coloured rays and allow the passage of others; colour-fringing = fringing vbl. n. b; colour gravure Printing, gravure in colours; also attrib.; colour-guard, in a U.S. infantry regiment, a guard for the colours consisting of eight corporals and the colour-bearer; colour-hearer, one who experiences colour-hearing; colour-hearing (see quot.); colour-index, (a) Path., the relative amount of colouring matter contained in a red blood-corpuscle; (b) Astr., (see quot. 1921); (c) Geol., a number representing the percentage of dark-coloured minerals in an igneous rock; colour-line, (a) on seals or engravings, fine parallel lines indicating colour or tincture. (b) esp. in U.S., the line of demarcation between the coloured and the white race; colour magazine = colour supplement; colour-music (see quot. 1903); colour-organ (see quots.); colour pan, a pan in which a colour and its thickener are mixed and incorporated in calico-printing; colour-party, the party consisting of two junior officers assisted by four serjeants, who carry the colours of a regiment; colour-phase, a genetic or seasonal variation in the colour of the skin, pelt, or feathers of an animal or bird; colour-piece, a piece of bric-a-brac, or the like, introduced into a room, etc., for the sake of its colouring; colour-plate, one of a set of plates used in colour-printing; a print made from such plates; colour-printed a., printed in colours; colour-printing, printing in different colours, chromatic printing: hence colour-print, -printer; colour-ringing (see quot. 1958); so colour-ring v., colour-ringed adj.; colour-roller Calico-printing, a roller that revolves in the colour-box and carries the colour to the printing-roller, against which it presses; colour scheme, (a) an arrangement of colours following a thought-out design, e.g. in furnishing or decorating a house, etc., or in planting a flower garden; (b) a scheme of protective coloration (of animals or birds); colour screen, a plate of coloured glass or the like used as a screen to absorb certain rays of light while allowing others to pass; colour section, a portion of a newspaper, etc., containing coloured illustrations; colour-sense, the sense of colour, the power of discriminating colours; colour-sensitive a., of photographic emulsion, plates, etc., sensitized for photographing in colours; so colour-sensitiveness; colour-sensitivity (see quot. 1937); colour-sensitized a. = colour-sensitive; so colour-sensitizer; colour separation, ‘the isolation on separate photographic negatives by the use of color filters of the parts of a picture or design that are to be printed in the given colors; also, any of these separate negatives’ (Webster 1961); also attrib.; colour service Mil., service ‘with the colours’ as distinguished from ‘on the reserve’; colour solid, a solid (solid n.1 1) bearing examples of a series of shades of colour; colour-striker, a practical colour-maker; a maker of chemical colours (cf. strike); colour supplement, a supplement in a newspaper, etc., containing coloured illustrations; also attrib.; colour television, television in natural colours; colour temperature (see quots.); colour-tone, (a) a tone of colour; (b) Art, gradation and harmony of colour; (c) Psychol., the colour quality of a coloured impression; chroma or hue as distinguished from brightness and saturation (Cent. Dict. Suppl. 1909); colour-top, a top of which the upper surface is painted with the colours of the spectrum, or some of them, in order to show the effects of their combination during its rapid revolution; colour triangle, the representation of colours by the positions of points in a triangle, the apexes of the triangle representing the three primary colours; colour twist, a spiral or spirals of coloured glass in the stem of a drinking-glass; also, a drinking glass with such a stem; also (with hyphen) attrib.; colour value, value with reference to a colour scheme; also transf.; colour-wash, coloured distemper (see distemper n.2 2); colour-wash v. trans., to paint with coloured distemper; so colour-washed ppl. a., colour-washing vbl. n.; colour-way, a colour-combination or colour scheme; colour-weak a., unable to distinguish colours at a low degree of intensity; so colour-weakness; colour-wheel, an instrument of the revolving disc type, used for combining colours. See also colour-blind, -box, -de-roy, -man, -sergeant.
1905A. H. Munsell Color Notation v. 53 A very elementary sketch of the Color Solid and *Color Atlas..is all that can be given in the confines of this small book. 1956A. J. Ayer Probl. Knowledge ii. 64 To make sure that I am employing the name of some colour correctly..I consult a colour atlas.
1913W. C. Willoughby Rel. Black & White Races 3 The colour of the African is so strikingly different from ours, that it..serves in such phrases as *colour-bar to indicate the whole difference. 1914W. G. Lawrence in Home Lett. T.E. Lawrence (1954) 546 Relations between English and Hindu professors are bad, and there is a distinct colour bar except in the Mission colleges. 1955Times 8 July 9/6 These men, and possibly many others, are excluded from their country's teams in international games because their country has a colour-bar. 1961P. Mason Common Sense about Race iv. iii. 155 South Africa, the most extreme example of a colour bar country.
1904Daily Chron. 20 Apr. 3/5 A *colour book, as the term has now become, about the Channel Islands, is appearing.
1849C. Brontë Shirley I. xi. 286 The paints are deleterious..there is white lead..in those *colour cakes. 1901Kipling Kim x. 242 His little Survey paint-box of six colour-cakes and three brushes.
1894Country Gentlemen's Catal. p. v, Samples, pattern *colour cards, and price lists with all particulars on application. 1965‘M. Neville’ Ladies in Dark viii. 83 I'll order the paint today, before Nicholas gets his nose into the colour card again.
1874Garrod & Baxter Mat. Med. 398 Those of the true sac exhibit distinct, regular *colour-cells.
1904Westm. Gaz. 21 Sept. 10/1 The *colour-change [of the stoat] is fairly frequent in the Northern counties. 1936Russell & Yonge Seas (ed. 2) viii. 179 The remarkable property of colour change..is possessed by a far greater number of marine than terrestrial animals. 1936Discovery Aug. 241/2 *Colour-changing is the capacity for which chameleon has become proverbial.
1957Manvell & Huntley Film Music iii. 93 Harmonies are normally provided by using the bare fingers of the left hand to pluck on a group of about thirty gut strings, *colour coded for easy identification. 1959Which? Aug. 86/2 The [electrical] leads were incorrectly colour-coded. 1962B.S.I. News Feb. 24/1 It was decided that the standardization of a colour code should be considered for the identification of the main connections from the power supply to transportable equipment. 1963Which? Feb. 54/1 Anybody having this [dish-washing] machine installed should insist on having..a correctly colour coded flex fitted.
1955Pop. Photogr. Apr. 22 (Advt.), A magnificent coupled Rangefinder camera with fully automatic features and..*color corrected lens.
1880Amer. Jrnl. Sci. CXIX. 454 (heading) The *color correction of certain achromatic object glasses. 1911Encycl. Brit. XXI. 511/2 The colour correction is so perfect that the different coloured images are identical in size and position, thus rendering it specially suitable for three-colour and process work. 1961A. L. M. Sowerby Dict. Photogr. (ed. 19) 426 For photographing documents for reproduction and for copying paintings lenses having special colour corrections, called process and apochromatic process lenses, are used.
1900Stud. Yale Psychol. Lab. VIII. 17 All persons belonging to abnormal types might be called ‘*color defectives’. 1958Listener 6 Nov. 730/1 He, too, was a red–green colour-defective. Ibid., The paintings of three such colour defective artists.
1924R. M. Ogden tr. Koffka's Growth of Mind v. 272 A *colour-difference is apprehended. 1955G. G. Gouriet Introd. Colour Television 45 The particular method of duplex modulation used to combine both colour-difference signals on to the one sub-carrier.
1873E. Atkinson tr. Helmholtz's Pop. Lect. Sci. Subjects vi. 244 It is in fact the same [series of colours] which we described as arranged around the circumference of the *colour-disc.
1931R. Graves Poems 1926—1930 10 It [sc. philately] strengthened the nation In the arts of mensuration And *colour-discrimination. 1957P. Worsley Trumpet shall Sound vii. 126 These ‘Australians’ were remarkable for their friendly..attitudes to the natives, the ‘English’ for their maintenance of colour-discrimination.
1839Ure Dict. Arts 217 A sharp-edged ruler of gun-metal or steel, called the *colour doctor. 1876Encycl. Brit. IV. 685/1 The colour doctor..fits closely to the surface of the roller, and removes all colour except that which fills the engraved portions.
1900Daily News 22 Feb. 7/4 [A] *colour duster. Ibid., The magistrate remarked on the undesirability of permitting *colour dusting to be carried on in the printing shop.
1928Observer 1 Apr. 13 Shrinkproof, stretchproof and *colourfast. 1953Manch. Guardian 25 July 10 Standards of this kind would not require that all fabrics should be colourfast to washing but that their degree of colourfastness should be recognisably identified. 1962B.S.I. News Feb. 17/1 The measurement of colour fastness..is now of considerable importance in the leather, plastics and other industries.
1912F. A. Talbot Moving Pict. xxvi. 288 (caption) Preparing the Pathé *Colour Films. 1930Times 2 July 12/2 In a paper on the future of colour films..he said that the chemist had been devoting much attention to the..demand for natural-colour films. 1954Oxf. Jun. Encycl. IX. 456/2 In making a colour film, the whole of the picture has to be most carefully planned..so that a harmonious design results. 1957T. L. J. Bentley Man. Miniat. Camera (ed. 5) iv. 22 Colour transparencies which are gems of beauty can be made by means of multi⁓layer colour films.
1900Jrnl. Soc. Arts 7 Sept. 774/1 The permanency of a dye on a cotton fabric is of little use as an indication of its permanence in a sealed *colour filter. 1902Encycl. Brit. XXXII. 16/2 Different makes of plates demand different colour-filters. 1948Sci. News VII. 82 An interesting war-time application of such colour filter techniques was the determination of the depths of off-shore water along enemy coast lines.
1935Discovery July 192/1 Excessive parallax, with consequent *colour-fringing, is the inevitable result.
1823Crabb Technol. Dict., *Color-guard.
1925N.Y. World 20 Dec. (title) *Color Gravure Section. 1929Times 29 Oct. xvi/5 Printers..would thus be able to undertake colour-gravure printing in their own shops... It is on these lines that an extension of the commercial use of colour-gravure may be anticipated. 1958Ibid. 1 Aug. 13/1 The rapid and striking development in colour-gravure production.
1881London Med. Record IX. 493/2 A student of medicine..stated..that while hearing he perceived colours, and this gave an impulse to further investigations. The ‘*colour-hearer’, Bleuler, associated with himself a colleague.
1882Times 12 Jan. 5/6 *Colour-hearing..a phenomenon of which some few people are conscious..viz. an appearance of certain colours accompanying the perception of notes or noises.
1908Practitioner Aug. 323 Generally the fewer the red corpuscles, the higher is the *colour index. 1921Discovery Feb. 38/1 The difference between the photographic and the visual magnitude of a star is therefore due to the colour of the star, and is called the colour-index. 1927S. J. Shand Eruptive Rocks vii. 131 If a rock contains 17 per cent. of heavy minerals, we shall say that its colour ratio is 17 per cent., or that its colour index is 17. 1937Hatch & Wells Petrol. Igneous Rocks (ed. 9) iv. i. 134 The percentage of dark (heavy) minerals in a rock is termed its ‘colour index’.
1878N. Amer. Rev. CXXVII. 491 We shall soon cease to hear of a *color-line.
1964Observer 13 Sept. 5/5 A *colour magazine to be included with the paper on Fridays.
1844D. D. Jameson (title) *Colour-music. 1903A. A. Michelson Light Waves i. 2 A color-music, in which the performer, seated before a literally chromatic scale, can play the colors of the spectrum in any succession or combination, flashing on a screen all possible gradations of color..or the most gorgeous and startling contrasts and color chords. 1957Encycl. Brit. VI. 64/1 Colour-music is the term most frequently employed to designate an art which makes use of varying light or lights as its principal means of expression.
1881Cassell's Fam. Mag. 699/2 The different colours of the spectrum form a scale of light which has often been compared to the musical scale, and the idea has recently taken shape in what has been termed a *colour-organ. 1895Oracle Encycl. II. 119 A ‘Colour Organ’ has been invented, which casts combinations of colour upon a screen somewhat on the same principle as a musical organ discharges sounds. 1959Westrup & Harrison Collins Mus. Encycl. 591/2 The score of Prometheus [by Scriabin] includes a ‘colour organ’.
1860Ure's Dict. Arts (ed. 5) I. 519 Down one side is fixed a range of *colour-pans. 1876Encycl. Brit. IV. 685/2 The mordant..and its appropriate thickeners are placed in a range of colour pans, in which the materials are thoroughly incorporated.
1927C. Elton Animal Ecol. xii. 182 The arctic fox possesses two *colour phases, one of which is brown in summer and white in winter, while the other is grey..and ‘blue’. 1957Encycl. Brit. XXII. 987/1 Other examples of this kind of variation are to be found in the ‘colour-phases’ of mammals (e.g., foxes) and birds.
1884J. S. Hodson Art Illustr. ii. ii. 206 One of these impressions is marked as a guide or key for preparing the several *colour plates. 1937Burlington Mag. Feb. 99/2 The series of colour-plates.
1862Catal. Intern. Exhib. IV. 15/2 Lithographic *oil-colour-print.
1933Burlington Mag. Dec. 269/1 His water-colour drawings, his illuminated printing and his ‘*colour-printed drawings’. 1956Nature 4 Feb. 217/1 The work involved in republishing colour-printed maps destroyed by enemy action.
1862Catal. Intern. Exhib. IV. 15/2 Establishment for *oil-colour-printing. 1869Eng. Mech. 31 Dec. 377/2 Colour-printing has now been brought to great perfection.
1937British Birds XXX. 376 While *colour-ringing other species this winter, I have had a number of Robins..coming to the trap. 1937Ibid. XXXI. 82 Colour-ringed birds. 1940Ibid. XXXIII. 307 A study of blue tits by colour ringing. 1958Listener 27 Nov. 891/2 Birds can be recognized individually if rings of different colours or combinations of colour are put on their legs, and by using this technique of ‘colour-ringing’ the author was able to record the histories of some forty birds of each sex in detail.
1890W. J. Gordon Foundry 168 Between the *colour-roller and the calico is a thin strip of steel which scrapes the printing-roller free of cotton.
1890G. B. Shaw in London Music (1937) 290 The character of the *color scheme never varied{ddd}the music never varied. 1906Dress Dec. 28/1 Color schemes are most carefully studied. 1914G. Jekyll (title) Colour schemes for the flower garden. 1925R. W. G. Hingston in E. F. Norton Fight for Everest, 1924 265 They are well able to defend themselves and thus have no need of a special colour scheme. 1954T. S. Eliot Confid. Clerk ii. 69 But I came to have a look at the flat To see if the colour scheme really suited you.
1890Woodbury Encycl. Photogr. 479 To use a *colour screen of yellow glass behind the lens.
1961Times 21 July 9/3 The Sunday Times is planning to carry a *colour section as part of every issue... It will be a self-contained section. 1962L. Deighton Ipcress File xv. 90 Floating Coca-Cola depot boats, ‘Life’ magazine colour-section printing-machine barges.
1879G. Allen (title), The *Colour-Sense. 1880Geiger's Developm. Hum. Race 49 The history of colour-sense is of paramount importance to the total development of sensation.
1888Photogr. Jrnl. XII. 149 The isochromatic, orthochromatic, and *colour-sensitive, or correct colour-tone process. 1907Westm. Gaz. 20 Sept. 4/3 Photographic colour-sensitive emulsion. 1909Ibid. 17 Apr. 14/2 Colour-sensitive plates. 1909C. E. K. Mees Photogr. Col. Obj. iv. 27 By orthochromatic photography, we intend to imply the use of a fully colour-sensitive plate.
1916Ibid. (ed. 2) iv. 37 The correcting action of such weak filters increases with the *colour-sensitiveness of the plate. 1888Abney Instruction Photogr. (ed. 8) 233 That colour sensitiveness can be given to a gelatine plate by coating it with either varnish or collodion in which various sensitive dyes are dissolved.
1937Discovery July 216/1 *Colour-sensitivity can have many meanings. ‘It is sometimes taken to denote the capacity to see a minimal amount of a colour when mixed with black, white, grey or another colour.’.. It may also mean, ‘the capacity to distinguish between two shades of a particular colour’.
1957T. L. J. Bentley Man. Miniat. Camera (ed. 5) iii. 15 This year..also saw the advent of the first..fast, highly *colour-sensitized, double-coated roll films.
1890Woodbury Encycl. Photogr. 475 A collodion emulsion rendered orthochromatic by the addition of so-called *colour-sensitisers.
1922Jrnl. Optical Soc. Amer. VI. 570 The pigments or dyes required for the satisfactory rendering..of photographic ‘*color separations’. 1924L. P. Clerc Ilford Man. Process Work xxii. 206 (heading) The practice of colour separation. 1930H. A. Groesbeck Pract. Photo-Engraving 61 This is called ‘color separation’ and comes in very handy if a color is to be completely cut out. 1935Discovery July 189/2 A colour-separation negative.
1884Sir F. S. Roberts in 19th Cent. June 1063 The period of *colour-service was raised to seven years for soldiers at home. 1892Pall Mall Gaz. 25 Feb. 6/2 Men..who have been transferred to the Reserve..should be allowed..to return to complete twelve years' Colour service.
1905*Color solid [see colour atlas].
[1912C. Mathewson Pitching xi. 236 ‘The necktie,’ he explained.., and pointed to the three-sheet, colored-supplement affair he was wearing around his collar.] 1939D. A. Spencer Colour Photogr. ix. 139 For editorial illustrations in the *colour supplements of newspapers, this lack of subtlety is of little account. 1965New Statesman 9 Apr. 586/1 Brainwashed into cultural coolness by Sunday papers and colour-supplements. 1966Listener 20 Oct. 568/3 The young Poles long for western luxuries like cars and clothes and the other bonuses of colour-supplement living.
1929Sheldon & Grisewood Television vii. 66 Baird was partially successful in *color television in 1928. Ibid. 129 (caption) Mr. Baird demonstrating the first color television. 1955G. G. Gouriet (title) An introduction to colour television. 1955Oxf. Jun. Encycl. VIII. 441/1 The colour-television receiver has three separate cathode ray tubes, one for each of the signals from the three cameras.
1916Jrnl. Franklin Inst. CLXXXI. 418 By ‘*color temperature’ of a solid body radiating by virtue of its temperature is meant that temperature of a black body at which its radiation matches in color that of the solid body in question. 1926J. W. T. Walsh Photometry ix. 271 The temperature of a black body which gives light of the same apparent colour as that given by the radiating body, is known as the ‘colour temperature’ of that body.
1875tr. Vogel's Chem. Light vii. 60 The small number of the *colour-tones compared with the large number of musical tones is very striking. 1888Colour-tone [see colour-sensitive above]. 1895E. B. Titchener in Amer. Jrnl. Psychol. VII. 81 Farbenton, color-tone. 1896Westm. Gaz. 18 Nov. 7/3 New designs produced in three styles of colour-tone, and black and white. 1904Burlington Mag. V. 52/2 ‘The most important part of colour-tone atmosphere,’ Millet was fond of saying, ‘can be perfectly rendered in black and white.’ 1907Westm. Gaz. 13 Sept. 2/1 Scarlet hips..a flaming colour-tone in the grey-green of the fading hedgerow.
1856Maxwell in Rep. Brit. Assoc., Trans. of Sections 13 *Colour-top. 1886Athenæum 21 Aug. 242/2 The mixture of colours apart from the mixture of pigments..is best illustrated by the use of the well-known colour-top.
1876S. R. Koehler tr. W. von Bezold's Theory of Color iii. 133 The theory of the three fundamental sensations likewise demands that the color-chart should be a triangle, and..the color-cirle represented in Fig. 46 has been constructed with the aid of the *color-triangle, that is to say, it is to be looked upon as..an enlargement of the small circle represented within the color-triangle. 1922W. Peddie Colour Vision iii. 40 The colour triangle and colour pyramid..are geometrical representations of the results of the trichromatic theory. 1957R. W. G. Hunt Reprod. Colour viii. 88 The consideration of many of these questions is facilitated by the use of the colour triangle, which may be thought of as a kind of colour map, in which all colours are represented in a systematic way by points in a triangle.
1936Burlington Mag. Oct. p. xxiii/2 Among table-glass there is a collection of *colour-twist and baluster-stem glasses. 1965P. M. Hubbard Hive of Glass ii. 22 My glass..was quite a small one, a colour-twist I wanted to believe was English.
1898W. Robinson Eng. Flower Garden (ed. 6) xiv. 198 The Carnation..has a fine *colour-value of foliage in winter. 1930Time & Tide 7 June 744 Music is now moving towards a phase in which ‘colour values’ will be the principal means of expression.
1887Daily News 29 June 5/8 Apartments..*colour-washed in several shades of pale grey and chocolate. 1905Holman Hunt Pre-Raphaelitism I. 114 The white-washing and colour-washing still not being completed. 1925Contemp. Rev. Oct. 461 The bridegroom..glazes the windows and colour-washes the walls. 1950F. Stark Trav. Prelude 236 The colour-washed little tower of Mortola church. 1968Guardian 20 Aug. 5/2 A party from International Voluntary Service colourwashed some of the camp's concrete walls.
1957House & Garden Nov. 142 ‘Silhouette’ [fabric design] by a British artist is sold in four *colourways in heavy cotton. 1960Guardian 20 May 10/6 A very pleasant printed cotton satin..seems equally good in all the ‘colour-ways.’.
1924R. M. Ogden tr. Koffka's Growth of Mind v. 268 Being ‘*colour-weak’, I see red and green only under favourable conditions.
1909Cent. Dict. Suppl., *Color-weakness.
1893Funk's Stand. Dict., *Color-wheel. 1924R. M. Ogden tr. Koffka's Growth of Mind iii. 62 Rotating disk, or colour-wheel, half white and half black. 1967E. Short Embroidery & Fabric Collage i. 10 The simplest form of colour wheel is one containing the three primary colours.
Add:[IV.] [18.] [b.] colour graphics [graphic a. and n. B. 1 b.]
1975Papers IEEE Cement Industry Techn. Conf. v. ii. 1 The computer system embodies *color graphics and alphanumeric displays for all man/computer interface. 1985Personal Computer World Feb. 41 (Advt.), Its colour graphics and new Bitstik make it welcome in design studios.
▸ (a) Pool any of the coloured balls excluding the black ball; (b) Snooker any of the six higher-value coloured balls (yellow, green, brown, blue, pink, and black).
1897R. F. Foster Compl. Hoyle 588 English Pool... When coloured balls are used, the players must play progressively, as the colours are placed on the pool marking-board, the top colour being No. 1. 1928C. Bergenter Contrib. Study of Conversion of Adjectives into Nouns 135 The reds must be potted before you take the colours. 1954Billiards & Snooker (‘Know the Game’ Ser.) 26 It is policy to direct the cue-ball to a part of the table remote from the reds, and, if possible, behind a colour (i.e., a snooker). 1995Snooker Scene May 13/2 Ebdon failed to escape this fortuitous snooker and could not recover after Hendry then potted the last red with a brown to open a 30 point lead with only the colours remaining.
▸ colour pencil n. = coloured pencil n. at coloured adj. Additions.
1799Mercantile Advertiser (N.Y.) 29 July 1/5 A few sets of the beautiful crayon *colour pencils. 1901Marion (Ohio) Daily Star 15 June 16/6 There were some color pencils on the desk. 1992Artist's & Illustrator's Mag. Oct. 6/2 (advt.) Water resistant colour pencils for artists.
▸ colour therapist n. Alternative Med. a practitioner of colour therapy.
1956Compl. Study Course in Colour-therapy (Internat. College Metaphysical Sci.) i. 5 The application of colour in the ways mentioned is not a difficult matter unless..one wishes to become a Colour Consultant, Colour Psychologist, or a *Colour Therapist. 1979Tucson (Arizona) Mag. Feb. 16/1 She needs more reds and greens in her surroundings and can wear orange to subdue her moods.., says..color therapist. 2001Western Daily Press (Bristol) (Electronic ed.) 11 June According to colour therapist June McLeod green is open, calm, adaptable, relaxed, friendly and harmonious.
▸ colour therapy n. Alternative Med. the use of colour, esp. projected coloured light, to promote physical or mental well-being.
1915Jrnl. Philos. 12 721 The New York Branch of the American Psychological Association met..on November 22. The following papers were read:..‘*Color Therapy’, Dr. T. H. Ames. 1932Times 13 Dec. 1/6 (advt.) Artificial sunlight and colour-therapy treatment.—Apparatus for sale. 1950F. Birren Color Psychol. & Color Therapy p. vii, The first [desire] has been to assemble a wealth of data on color psychology and color therapy which has a credible basis. 1989S. Fulder Handbk. Complementary Med. (rev. ed.) 160 The theory of colour therapy..conceives of colour as containing energy of a particular vibrational character which can complement or interfere with the energy of the function of the body.
▪ II. † colour, n.2 Obs.
= cully.
1719D'Urfey Pills V. 24 And all my wealth they took by stealth, Thus was a poor Colour trick'd.
▪ III. colour, color, v.|ˈkʌlə(r)|
Forms: see the n.
[ME. coloure(n, etc. a. OF. couloure-r, colore-r:—L. colōrāre, f. color colour.]
1. trans. To give colour to; to imbue, charge, or mark with colour or hue; to paint, stain, dye. Const. also with over.
c1325E.E. Allit. P. B. 456 Þe rauen..watz colored as þe cole. c1381Chaucer Parl. Foules 443 As the fressh rede rose newe Ayene the somer sonne coloured ys. c1400Destr. Troy 3052 Corvyn by crafte, colourd with honde. c1420Liber Cocorum (1862) 47 Color hit with safroune. 1527R. Thorne in Hakluyt Voy. (1589) 254 The coastes..I have coloured with yellow. 1663Gerbier Counsel (1664) G iij, The Painters are to colour over their windows thrice. 1784Cowper Task ii. 13 A skin Not coloured like his own. 1805Wordsw. Waggoner i. 92 Coloured all by his own hand.
b. absol.
1599Hakluyt Voy. II. i. 163 Such things as colour blew. 1662Merrett tr. Neri's Art of Glass xcv, Sometimes the powders colour more and sometimes less.
c. fig.
1637R. Humfrey tr. St. Ambrose i. 104 The use..of ancients..doth colour and beautifie the manners of young men. 1888Alma Tadema in Pall Mall G. 9 Apr. 3/1 As the sun colours flowers, so art colours life.
†2. To embellish, set off in rhetorical colours.
c1300K. Alis 2201 This batail destuted is, In the French..Therefore Y haue, hit to colour, Borowed of the Latyn autour.
3. To represent in fair colours (what is of the opposite character); to give a specious aspect to; to gloss, cloak, disguise, excuse; to render specious or plausible. Const. out, over.
1377Langl. P. Pl. B. xix. 455 Eche man sotileth a sleight synne forto hyde, And coloureth it for a kunnynge and a clene lyuynge. c1400Destr. Troy 7852 Þai colowrne hom coyntly with a cause febill. c1460Fortescue Abs & Lim. Mon. (1714) 29 Whych thyng, though it be colowryd per Jus Regale, yet it is Tyrannye. 1548Udall, etc. Erasm. Par. John 99 b, They shall colour out their wickednesse with pretense of godlynesse. 1574tr. Marlorat's Apocalips 36 They coloured theyr cursed filthye vncleannesse wyth the name of Nicolas the Deacon. 1606G. W[oodcocke] tr. Hist. Ivstine G g 4 b, The which Salonina [a harlot] he colord vnder marriage. 1741Middleton Cicero (1742) I. v. 367 Howsoever this may color, it cannot justify Cato's conduct. 1862Merivale Rom. Emp. VII. lix. 206 Armed bands who had coloured their brigandage under the name of patriotism.
b. To exhibit in a false light; to put an unfair or untrue construction upon; to misrepresent.
1393Gower Conf. III. 139 They speken pleine after the lawe But he the wordes of his sawe Coloureth in an other wey. 1529More Heresyes iv. Wks. 267/2 This is your verye doctrine, how so euer ye colour it. a1592Greene & Lodge Looking Glasse Wks. (1861) 121 It was your device that, to colour the statute. 1786J. Jay in Sparks Corr. Amer. Rev. (1835) IV. 135 The facts are inaccurately stated, and improperly colored. 1860Dickens Lett. (1880) II. 112 The evidence has been suppressed and coloured.
†4. To lend one's name to; represent or deal with as one's own. to colour strangers' goods: to enter a foreign merchant's goods at the custom-house under a freeman's name, for the purpose of evading additional duties. Obs.
a1502in Arnolde's Chron. (1811) 88 The Cowpers of this cite haue vsed and dayly vse to colour straungers goodis. 1622Malynes Anc. Law-Merch. 114 If a Factor or Merchant, doe colour the goods of Merchant Strangers in paying but English Customes..he runneth into a Præmunire. 1625Bacon Ess. Usury (Arb.) 546 Then they will be hardly able to Colour other Mens Moneyes in the Country. a1655Bp. G. Goodman Crt. Jas. I, I. 351 Their [ambassadors'] servants did colour and transport other mens goods. 1726in Dict. Rust. (ed. 3) s.v.
5. To imbue with its own tone or character.
[1580Lyly Euphues (Arb.) 340 Wher cunning must worke, the whole body must be coloured.] 1835Lytton Rienzi viii. iii, Those emotions..coloured his whole soul. 1838–9Hallam Hist. Lit. IV. iv. vii. 320 His predominating good sense colours the whole. 1882W. Ballantine Exper. xii. 123 In all these cases it is the motive that colours the act.
†6. intr. to colour with: to harmonize with.
a1625Fletcher Rollo iv. i, Your counsels colour not with reason of state. 1648J. Goodwin Right & Might 32 Nor doth the Act of the Army..colour, or shadow (in the least) with the act of the King.
7. To take on colour, to change colour, to become coloured; spec. said of grapes or other fruit, in acquiring the colour of ripeness.
1667H. Stubbe in Phil. Trans. II. 497 The Sea coloureth from green to darkish, and so to blue. 1882Garden 3 June 389/1 A marvel to me that..Grapes colour so well as they do. Ibid., A prime necessity as regards colouring grapes. Mod. This meerschaum won't colour.
8. spec. To turn red in the face, to blush. Also colour up.
1721–1800in Bailey. 1755Johnson, To colour, to blush. A low word, only used in conversation. 1787Mirror 80 The poor woman coloured. 1801M. Edgeworth Gd. Fr. Governess (1832) 182, I used to colour every minute, as Miss Matilda does. 1836Marryat Japhet xxxiv, Her ladyship coloured up with rage. 1876Holland Sev. Oaks xii. 162 He colored as if he had been detected in a crime.
b. trans. nonce-use.
1824S. E. Ferrier Inher. xiv, [She] only coloured a reply. [Cf. to smile, nod, blush a reply.]
▪ IV. colour(e
obs. form of choler. |