colouredcoloredadj.n.
/ˈkʌləd/, U.S. /ˈkələrd/α. Middle English icolored, Middle English icoloured, Middle English ycolorid, Middle English ycoloured, Middle English ycolourede, Middle English ycolourid, Middle English ycolowrd.
β. Middle English collerd, Middle English colord, Middle English colorid, Middle English coloryd, Middle English colourede, Middle English colouret (in a late copy), Middle English colourid, Middle English colouryd, Middle English colowred, Middle English colowryd, Middle English colured, Middle English coulord, Middle English coulourid, Middle English–1500s colourd, Middle English– colored (now chiefly U.S.), Middle English– coloured, 1500s coleryd, 1500s coulored, 1500s–1600s colloured, 1500s–1600s couloured, 1600s coelerd, 1600s collourd, 1600s cullerid, 1900s– cullud (U.S. regional); also Scottish pre-1700 collerit, pre-1700 collored, pre-1700 collorit, pre-1700 coloret, pre-1700 colorit, pre-1700 colourit, pre-1700 cullorit.
A. adj.
I. Literal uses.
1. Having a colour or colours; that is or has been coloured. Also as the second element in compounds.Sometimes opposed to black or white, or to the prevailing colour: see note at colour n.1 1a.For more established compounds, as blue-, green-, many-, pale-, toffee-coloured, etc.: see the first element. coloured vision: see vision n.
ΘΚΠ
the world > matter > colour > state or mode of having colour > [adjective]
i-liteda1225
coloureda1325
colorate?a1425
tinct1579
primary colour1612
tincted1626
tinctured1626
tinto1686
tinted1756
unpaleda1820
pigmented1822
toned1864
hued1876
a1325 Diuersa Cibaria in C. B. Hieatt & S. Butler Curye on Inglysch (1985) 49 Abouen þe mete icoloured schulen beon iset alemauns iwyted & rys & penides.
a1398 J. Trevisa tr. Bartholomaeus Anglicus De Proprietatibus Rerum (BL Add. 27944) (1975) I. iv. ix. 157 His vrine is white and þicke, rawe and euel icoloured [L. discolorata].
1418 Guildhall Let.-bk. in R. W. Chambers & M. Daunt Bk. London Eng. (1931) 97 The Mair and Aldermen chargen..þat no manere persone..be so hardy in eny wyse to walk by nyght..with eny feynyd berdis, peyntid visers, disfourmyd or colourid visages in eny wyse.
1461 in J. Raine Testamenta Eboracensia (1855) II. 248 (MED) iij yerdis of collerd cloyth to a gowne.
?1530 J. Fitzherbert Bk. Husbandry (rev. ed.) f. xxxv A coloured horse that hath moche whyte on hym.
1584 R. Scot Discouerie Witchcraft xiii. xix. 316 The coloured and cleare glasses.
1611 Bible (King James) Rev. xvii. 3 A scarlet coloured beast. View more context for this quotation
1665 R. Boyle Occas. Refl. v. v. sig. Kk7v A Gentleman..chancing to come in a Colour'd suit.
1701 in W. R. Scott Rec. Sc. Cloth Manufactory New Mills (1905) 255 Without regaird to any coloured cloaths except midlings and fyne cinamons.
1758 Monthly Rev. 19 348 Various methods of counterfeiting gems..by coloured glass, pastes, doublets.
1807 J. E. Smith Introd. Physiol. & Systematical Bot. 168 Coloratum, coloured, expresses any colour in a leaf besides green.
1858 J. W. Carlyle Lett. II. 362 A large coloured map on excessively thick paper.
1892 Daily News 17 Dec. 5/7 A Czarina jacket of almond-coloured zibeline.
1921 Pop. Mech. May 729/1 Between two such layers, a sheet of oiled paper, bearing a colored design, may be cemented.
1961 F. C. Avis Sportsman's Gloss. 228/2 Hoops, narrow bands of white or coloured silks going round the jockey's blouse.
2001 BBC Wildlife Sept. 84/1 Swimming among the huge barrel sponges that dominate the plateau, with mantis shrimps and brightly coloured gobies bustling about their base.
2. With modifying adverb. Having a complexion (of the specified kind).Recorded earliest in well-coloured adj.
ΘΚΠ
the world > life > the body > skin > complexion > [adjective]
(fair) of flesh and fellc1000
cleara1400
coloureda1400
well-complexioned1483
complexioned1615
complexionary1656
fresh-faced1766
complected1806
complexional1820
a1400 tr. Lanfranc Sci. Cirurgie (Ashm.) (1894) 181 (MED) If þe pacient be fleischi & wel colourid [L. carnosus delicatus].
c1515 Ld. Berners tr. Bk. Duke Huon of Burdeux (1882–7) lxxxi. 243 Pale & yll coloured by reason of ye yll prison.
c1540 A. Borde Bk. for to Lerne D j a It doth..make a man loke euyll colored.
1577 B. Googe tr. C. Heresbach Foure Bks. Husbandry iv. f. 182 Some of them be shagheard, and ill coloured.
1621 R. Burton Anat. Melancholy i. ii. iii. xv. 169 They [sc. Students] are commonly leane, dry, ill-coloured.
1683 W. Salmon Doron Medicum iii. 643 Restores the whole Skin (though evilly framed as to its Pores) making it well coloured.
1721 R. Wodrow Corr. (1843) II. 581 He..is turned blue and ill-coloured.
1799 Med. & Physical Jrnl. 2 45 The child has appeared fresh coloured and easy.
1822 J. M. Good Study Med. IV. 299 By this regimen he reduced himself to the condition of a middle-sized man of firm flesh, well coloured complexion and sound health.
1887 A. Stewart Wandering Willie vi. 44 Mabel was a dark-eyed vivacious little lady of some twenty years, with a bright, merry, fresh-coloured face.
1922 A. MacGowan & P. Newberry Million-dollar Suitcase x. 119 His ill-colored face went a shade nearer the yellow white of tallow.
1996 A. Weir Children of Henry VIII ii. viii. 189 Mary, at thirty-seven, was small and thin, and her fresh-coloured face had been marred by years of anxiety and ill-health.
3. † a. Of a white person: dark-complexioned. Obsolete.
ΚΠ
1591 H. Savile tr. Tacitus Life Agricola in tr. Tacitus Ende of Nero: Fower Bks. Hist. 243 The couloured [L. colorati] countenances of thee Silures..seeme to induce, that the olde Spaniards passed the Sea and possessed those places.
1612 J. Speed Theatre of Empire of Great Brit. i. xxv. 49/1 Their [sc. the Silures']..coloured countenances, and curled haire, was out of Spaine.
b. Denoting a member of any dark-skinned group of peoples, esp. a person of sub-Saharan African or (in Britain) South Asian origin or descent; in earliest use with reference to South America. Now usually considered offensive.Coloured was adopted in the United States by emancipated slaves as a term of racial pride after the end of the American Civil War. It was rapidly replaced from the late 1960s as a self-designation by black (see note at black adj. 3a) and later by African-American, although it is retained in the name of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. In Britain it was the accepted term for black, Asian, or mixed-race people until the 1960s.
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the world > people > ethnicities > division of mankind by physical characteristics > non-white person > [adjective]
blackOE
coloured1758
native1827
non-white1867
non-European1870
Indo-African1896
woggy1941
wog1948
New Commonwealth1964
1758 J. Adams tr. A. de Ulloa Voy. S.-Amer. I. iii. iii. 123 The Mestizo, or negro women, or the coloured women as they are called here [sc. Panama] [Sp. las Mugeres de colòr].
1794 C. Bishop Let. 14 Dec. in Jrnl. & Lett. (1967) 23 They Reckon the White inhabitants [of Rio de Janeiro] to be one forth of the whole,..the Coloured People one forth, and from twenty to thirty thousand Blacks.
1831 in Anti-slavery Reporter (1833) June 9/1 We, the colored people of Pittsburgh, and citizens of these United States, view the country in which we live as our only true and proper home.
1841 Liberator (Boston) 10 Sept. 1/2 He witheringly exposed the miserableness of the color prejudice, and demanded for the colored man nothing but that equality which was his right.
1880 Printing Trades Jrnl. No. 31. 5 Frederic Douglass, the celebrated coloured orator.
1935 Crisis Feb. 62/1 The colored voters will find in me one who will support any sound legislation against the present unjustifiable lynchings.
1953 R. W. Fairbrother Text-bk. Bacteriol. (ed. 7) xxxi. 379 Neurosyphilis is rare in coloured people.
1986 R. Hewitt White Talk Black Talk v. 167 This white girl I know, she started talking patois an' that to this coloured girl. An' then the coloured girl turned round and said, ‘Oh look she's trying to speak like a black girl now.’
1993 S. L. Delany et al. Having our Say i. i. 7 Mama, who was from Virginia, was an issue-free Negro... She was proud to be a colored woman!
2000 P. Wilmot Train to Walthamstow in C. Newland & K. Sesay IC3 93 She pushed her News of the World further down her Asda bag, suspecting the cheeky coloured girl with her in-your-face attitude..was looking down at her Bulldog Englishness.
c. Originally and chiefly U.S. Of or belonging to any group of dark-skinned people, esp. African Americans. Also, during the era of racial segregation in the United States: intended for or restricted to African Americans. Now usually considered offensive. Now chiefly historical.See note at sense A. 3b.
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1821 Jrnl. Convent. Protestant Episcopal Church St. Paul's, Baltimore 21 The Colored School, taught in the afternoon, has 12 teachers, and 150 scholars.
1834 A. C. Carmichael Five Years in Trinidad & St. Vincent I. iii. 76 Whenever there is a coloured dance, the noise made in this way is heard to a considerable distance.
1866 W. D. Howells Venetian Life v. 14 Our own coloured melodies.
1912 Crisis Aug. 180/2 New York and Ohio have each between 40,000 and 50,000 colored votes.
1966 Ebony Dec. 162 They didn't like white kids..enjoying colored music.
1997 R. Kidd Way we Civilise viii. 251 Ipswich business and church leaders formed the One People of Australia League (OPAL) to tackle the ‘coloured’ housing problem.
2009 C. Fountain Under March Sun iii. 48 He remembered bitterly when his wife and young son were denied a cab on base and told to wait instead for the ‘colored cab’.
d. South African. Also with capital initial. Of mixed racial or ethnic origin; (during the apartheid era) classified under the Population Registration Act of 1950 as belonging to this population group (now historical). Cf. Cape Coloured adj. and n. (a) at cape n.3 Compounds 1b.Used as a self-designation, and not considered offensive. During the apartheid era, from the late 1970s often used in inverted commas or prefixed by ‘so-called’, etc., to indicate the speaker or writer's disapproval of ethnic classification.
ΘΚΠ
the world > people > ethnicities > division of mankind by physical characteristics > mixed race > [adjective] > person > person white and black > in South Africa
bastard1785
Griqua1793
coloured1838
hotnot1939
Euro-African1952
1838 W. B. Boyce Notes S. Afr. Affairs 134 The coloured population are..demoralized in large towns in the neighbourhood of canteens.
1859 Cape Town Weekly Mag. 21 Jan. 14 During a severe storm experienced on Friday afternoon,..a coloured man, by name of Jan Hopely, was struck dead by lightening.
1930 Star (Johannesburg) 24 Jan. in Dict. S. Afr. Eng. on Hist. Princ. (1996) (at cited word) What are we coloured girls..to do? The behaviour of some tram conductors is unbearable.
1950 Act 30 in Statutes of Union 277 ‘Coloured person’ means a person who is not a white person or a native.
1952 P. Abrahams in Drum (Johannesburg) July 11 He had known a Coloured man who had been white nearly all his life, who had fought in the last war as a white officer..and then became a Coloured man quite suddenly.
1979 Cape Times 20 Dec. 12 An outstanding representative of the generation of intellectual and political leaders of the so-called coloured community.
2016 T. Noah Born a Crime ii. 29 Enough people were out and about, black, white, and colored, going to and from work, that we could get lost in the crowd.
II. Figurative uses.† 4.
a. Of a fact, argument, etc.: presented or manipulated so as to appear true or trustworthy; valid in appearance only; specious. Cf. colourable adj. 1a. Obsolete.
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the mind > mental capacity > knowledge > conformity with what is known, truth > deceit, deception, trickery > dissimulation, pretence > semblance, outward show > [adjective]
fairOE
seeming1340
feignedc1374
colourablea1400
whitea1413
coloured?c1425
satiablec1487
provable1588
specious1611
well-seeminga1616
superficial1616
meretricious1633
glosseda1640
probable1639
spurious1646
fucatious1654
ostensible1762
well-looking1811
semblant1840
?c1425 (c1412) T. Hoccleve De Regimine Principum (Royal 17 D.vi) (1860) 79 (MED) Lat no coloured excusacioun Yow make fro hem slippe aside or swerue.
1449–50 Rolls of Parl.: Henry VI (Electronic ed.) Parl. Nov. 1449 §47. m. 7 The seid mesprisions, fawtes, and other full untrue coloured counseilles, and myschevous dedes of the same duke.
1478 in Rotuli Parl. (1767–77) VI. 194/1 (MED) The falsest and moost unnaturall coloured pretense that man myght imagyne.
1525 Ld. Berners tr. J. Froissart Chron. III.-IV. clxxxii. f. ccxxvii/1 The lordes drewe to the countesse of Bloyes, and shewed her so many colored reasons.
1576 A. Fleming tr. Solon in Panoplie Epist. 193 He spared no coloured pretence to allure the vulgar sort.
a1600 ( W. Stewart tr. H. Boece Bk. Cron. Scotl. (1858) 39141 He..With colorit law rycht mony saikles slew.
1668 N. French Narr. Settlement & Sale of Ireland 4 The first Minster [sic] of State (whom they had gained to their side, by what coloured Arguments he knows best himself).
1677 W. Lloyd Papists no Catholicks 10 As in coloured words they seem to agree with the true Christian Church in the doctrine of Faith; so indeed they deny and abolish the substance thereof.
1854 Asylum Jrnl. No. 8. 125/2 Architects..have placed highly colored facts before the public.
1882 Downside Rev. July 430 The expedient to afford coloured excuse for withdrawal from protestant service and heretical preaching was ingenious.
b. That is only a pretence; assumed or affected for the sake of appearance or for some advantage; feigned, simulated; false. Cf. colourable adj. 2a. Obsolete.
ΘΚΠ
the mind > mental capacity > knowledge > conformity with what is known, truth > deceit, deception, trickery > dissimulation, pretence > [adjective]
fainta1340
counterfeit1393
pretense1395
feinta1400
feigned1413
disguisyc1430
colourable1433
pretending1434
simulate1435
dissimuled1475
simulative1490
coloureda1500
dissimulate?a1500
simuled1526
colorate1528
dissembled1539
mock1548
devised1552
pretended?1553
artificial1564
supposed1566
counterfeited1569
supposing?1574
affecteda1586
pretensive1607
false1609
supposite1611
simulara1616
simulatory1618
simulated1622
put-ona1625
ironic1631
ironical1646
devisable1659
pretensional1659
pretenced1660
pretensory1663
vizarded1663
shammed?c1677
sham1681
faux1684
fictitious1739
ostensible1762
made-up1773
mala fide1808
assumed1813
semblative1814
fictioned1820
pretextual1837
pseudo1854
fictive1855
schlenter1881
faked1890
phoney1893
phantom1897
a1500 ( J. Yonge tr. Secreta Secret. (Rawl.) (1898) 132 (MED) Pryncis..that for thar owyn Synguler auauntage..by coloure of har Pryncehode and coloured defense of the commyn Pepill, takyn..trew men goodis.
a1500 in Archiv f. das Studium der Neueren Sprachen (1932) 161 41 (MED) Thi coloured goodnesse is but iniquite.
1543 R. Grafton Contin. in Chron. J. Hardyng f. xivv A false fayned and coloured frende.
1574 A. Golding tr. A. Marlorat Catholike Expos. Reuelation 31 Contenting himselfe with coloured holinesse.
1610 J. Guillim Display of Heraldrie iii. iv. 95 An Hypocrits coloured zeale.
1685 J. Norris Disc. Relig. Assembling in Private Conventicles ii. 78 The adversaries making shew of helping forward the work..proved themselves to be the greatest Enemies to God's People, and hinderers of the building by their coloured Friendship.
c. Of a wrong act or intention: misrepresented so as to appear favourable or acceptable; disguised; glossed over. Obsolete.
ΘΚΠ
the mind > mental capacity > knowledge > conformity with what is known, truth > deceit, deception, trickery > dissimulation, pretence > semblance, outward show > [adjective] > having or given specious appearance
paintedc1390
daubedc1400
cloakeda1500
fucate1531
fucated1535
coloured1537
flim-flam1577
tinsel1595
varnisheda1616
punkish1616
white-limeda1631
pargeted1645
tinselled1651
vizarded1663
lacquered1687
glossy1698
catchpenny1705
catch-shilling1808
tinselly1811
whitewashed1859
shoddy1882
veneered1884
hollowed-out1890
face-lifted1941
suede shoe1952
cosmetic1955
1537 J. Husee Let. 24 May in Lisle Papers (P.R.O.: SP 3/5/65) f. 90 M. Owdall shall..at lenght haue lytyll thankes and lesse honesty for his coloryd doinges.
1557 Bible (Whittingham) 1 Thess. ii. 5 Nether dyd we any thing in coulored couetousnes.
1570 J. Foxe Actes & Monumentes (rev. ed.) II. xi. 2052/2 Of that your execrable periury, and his coloured and to shamefully suffered adultery.
5. Of literary style or a piece of writing: full of poetic or rhetorical ornament; florid, ornate; expressive, vivid. Frequently with modifying adverb, as highly, strongly, etc.
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society > leisure > the arts > literature > style of language or writing > ornateness > [adjective]
overwrittenOE
flourished1303
orne?a1425
ornatea1450
purpuratec1475
gallant1484
flourishinga1552
gorgeous1561
coloured1571
flowerya1616
ornated1630
flosculent1646
luscious1651
chromatic1652
romantic1653
gaudy1655
florid1656
blooming1685
bloomy1685
dressy1713
colouring1807
colorific1812
emblazoned1813
embroidered1868
purple1941
society > leisure > the arts > literature > style of language or writing > vigour or force > [adjective] > vivid
coloured1571
lively1712
vivid1806
living1876
1571 A. Golding tr. J. Calvin Psalmes of Dauid with Comm. (xxxviii. 13) David borroweth not colored Rhetorik from the court-barre.
1586 W. Webbe Disc. Eng. Poetrie sig. E.iiiiv Virgill maketh a braue coloured complaint of vnstedfast freendshyppe in the person of Corydon.
1780 E. B. Greene in tr. Apollonius Rhodius Argonautic Exped. I. ii. 228 The episode of Sthenelus in his character of ghost primarily occurs; a strongly-colored picture of poetical romance!
1817 Edinb. Rev. Aug. 513 This ornamented and coloured style, most proper to descriptive or fanciful poetry.
1879 J. McCarthy Hist. our Own Times II. xxix. 362 Every chapter glittered with vivid and highly coloured description.
1936 C. S. Lewis Allegory of Love 223 Usk is trying to write prose which shall have wings like verse—coloured and tunable prose.
1989 R. O. A. M. Lyne Words & Poet v. 107 The less coloured style of his [sc. Cicero's] philosophical works.
2003 C. Radding & F. Newton Theol., Rhetoric, & Polit. in Eucharistic Controv., 1078–1079 iii. 78 A highly colored passage that concludes by describing how the heavens open and choirs of angels are present when the priest completes the consecration.
6. Music. Ornamented, florid, figurate; (formerly) spec. †designating any type of counterpoint setting other than that in which one note is set against another (obsolete).
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society > leisure > the arts > music > piece of music > section of piece of music > ornament > [adjective] > florid
figurate1708
figurative1744
coloured1853
florid1876
melismatic1877
figured1879
figural1938
1609 J. Dowland tr. A. Ornithoparchus Micrologus 78 The Counter-point is two-fold, Simple and Coloured..The Coloured Counter-point is the constitution of a Song of diuers parts by diuers figures, and differing Concords.
1771 W. Hooper tr. J. F. von Bielfeld Elements Universal Erudition (new ed.) II. viii. 230 The counterpoint is either affected, imperfect, composite, coloured, [etc.].
1853 Hawkins' Gen. Hist. Music (new ed.) I. vi. li. 228/1 This was followed by the introduction of little points, imitations, colligations of notes and responsive passages... To this latter kind of music were given the epithets of Figurate, Coloured, [etc.].
1895 New Rev. Dec. 612 We never fail to get the characteristic Purcellian touch, the little unexpected inflexion, or bit of coloured harmony.
1980 P. F. Williams Organ Music J. S. Bach II. 153 The imitation itself seems to be reminiscent of Pachelbel, the ostinato bass idea of Buxtehude, the coloured melody of Böhm.
2007 Church Times 1 June 23/2 There is plenty of terse, brisk, brightly coloured counterpoint with a modern tinge.
III. Technical uses.
7. Particle Physics. Possessing the quantum property of colour (colour n.1 24).
ΘΚΠ
the world > matter > physics > atomic physics > particle physics > quark > [adjective] > having colour
coloured1972
1972 Acta Physica Austriaca Suppl. 9 738 One has to pay a large price in energy to get the colored SU3 excited.
1975 Sci. Amer. June 60/3 One of a class of proposed interpretations of the psi particles suggests that they may be the first observed states of colored matter.
1981 D. Wilkinson in J. H. Mulvey Nature of Matter i. 26 The gluons that flit between the coloured quarks must also carry colour.
2004 A. Watson Quantum Quark iv. 172 A whole new gauge theory based on local color symmetry, with a set of colored gauge bosons mediating interactions between colored quarks.
B. n.
1.
a. Originally and chiefly U.S. A member of any dark-skinned group of people; esp. an African American. Cf. sense A. 3b. Now offensive.
ΘΚΠ
the world > people > ethnicities > division of mankind by physical characteristics > non-white person > [noun]
person of colour1786
buck1800
coloured1832
Indiano1836
nigger1843
skepsel1844
native1846
non-white1864
fuzzy1890
fuzzy-wuzzy1892
monk1903
non-European1906
golliwog1916
wog1921
non-European1925
gook1935
boong1941
jungle bunny1966
Indio1969
1832 United States' Tel. 24 Aug. Deaths in the 24 hours ending at 10 o'clock this morning, 10 whites and 19 colored.
1863 Daily National Intelligencer (Washington) 9 May The ‘coloreds’ hold a ‘war meeting’ this evening at Israel Bethel.
1873 J. D. Davis Hist. City Memphis 172 A delegation waited on the coloreds, informing them that they must dry up or move farther off.
1957 C. MacInnes City of Spades i. xi. 80 A spot where fine young American coloureds can destroy themselves with female white trash.
1985 P. Bhachu Twice Migrants 11 They [sc. East African Sikhs] none the less get classified alongside other South Asians as ‘Hindus’, ‘Indians’, ‘Pakistanis’, ‘coloureds’, and so on, in the eyes of the indigenous British.
2003 R. L. Spencer Molasses Tree 8 There were laws preventing a Colored from disputing the word of a White man.
b. South African. Also with capital initial. A person of mixed racial or ethnic origin, typically speaking Afrikaans or English as a first language; (during the apartheid era) a person classified as ‘Coloured’ (see sense A. 3d) (now historical). Cf. Cape Coloured adj. and n. (b) at cape n.3 Compounds 1b, Cape Malay at Malay n. 1b.
ΘΚΠ
the world > people > ethnicities > division of mankind by physical characteristics > mixed race > [noun] > white and black > person > in South Africa
bastard1785
Baster1790
Griqua1815
Rehobothiana1867
Rehoboth Bastard1894
Griqualander1897
coloured1903
Rehobother Bastard1921
Eurafrican1922
Rehoboth1923
Rehoboth Baster1926
Rehobother1958
1903 C. W. F. Harrison Natal i. iii. viii. 130 The population is about 1,000 Europeans, and a similar number of ‘coloureds’.
1938 N. Devitt Spell of S. Afr. xxiv. 207 The bulk of the menial labour is done by coloureds who are not highly paid for their services.
1974 Drum (Johannesburg) 8 Mar. 7 Sowetonians, Swazis, White Jo'burgers, Indians, Coloured, all in their finest clothes, mixed happily.
2000 Times 30 Aug. ii. 10/4 Apartheid would describe Tsafendas as a ‘Coloured’,..or even, at times, as ‘white’, because he had light skin.
2. Chiefly British. In plural. Garments, bedlinen, etc., of any colour other than white, esp. with regard to keeping these and whites separate when washing. Cf. white n. 6d.
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the world > physical sensation > cleanness and dirtiness > cleaning > washing > washing clothes and textile articles > [noun] > clothes to be or that have been washed > type of
handwashing1793
coloured1884
flat work1921
1884 Furnit. Gaz. 17 May 414/1 Coloureds and whites [i.e. blankets] are both in demand.
1940 Manch. Guardian 6 Mar. 4/5 In laundry work, where you keep the coloureds from the whites.
1977 L. Rooke Broad Back of Angel 171 I loaded the empties with the rest of my dingy stuff, one for the whites and the second for the coloreds.
1995 K. Atkinson Behind Scenes at Museum (1996) vii. 206 Very artfully, of course, as Bunty would no more leave a chip pan unattended than she would mix her whites with her coloureds on washday.
2009 K. Overman-Edmiston Avenue Eternal Tranquility xxi. 262 He separated his clothes out into coloureds and whites for washing.
Compounds
coloured clothes n. British Services' slang (now chiefly historical) civilian clothes, as opposed to uniform.
ΘΚΠ
the world > textiles and clothing > clothing > types or styles of clothing > [noun] > for specific purpose > civilian
coloured clothesa1753
mufti1816
plain clothes1822
cit1835
plebeskin1888
civvies1889
a1753 P. Drake Memoirs (1755) I. vii. 47 Two Men came in..One of them had a Serjeant's Coat on, the other in coloured Clothes.
1829 J. Shipp Mem. ii. 33 One..asked me if I knew where to sell my coloured clothes.
1902 A. Griffiths in G. R. Sims Living London I. 168/2 The new soldier is still in his ‘coloured clothes’, as with delightful want of logic anything but the garish uniform of red or blue is always called in the Army.
1997 S. Reid Brit. Redcoat 1793–1815 56/1 The wearing of civilian or ‘coloured’ clothes in barracks was apparently quite common.
coloured audition n. now rare = coloured hearing n. [After French audition colorée (1883, itself apparently after English colour hearing n. at colour n.1 Compounds 4); compare German Farbenhören , lit. ‘colour hearing’ (1881 or earlier). Compare also quot. 1883 for coloured hearing n.]
ΚΠ
1884 Amer. Jrnl. Med. Sci. 88 94 As directly connected with the question of cerebral colour-perception we would call attention to the phenomenon of ‘coloured audition’, instances of which have recently been brought to notice.
1913 Public Health 26 96/2 These and various other peculiarities of vision—disordered colour-vision, coloured audition, and the fact that the actual limits of the visible spectrum vary considerably even in persons of normal sight show us clearly that there is no direct relationship between physical stimulation and physiological reaction.
2003 Leonardo 36 321/1 These sensations can be expressed as, for example, ‘colored audition’ (also called color-hearing), or ‘olfactive audition’ in subjects presenting a high aesthetic sensitivity.
coloured gold n. gold that has had its colour modified by alloying or other treatment.
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1810 Weekly Entertainer 29 Jan. 97 Ear-rings of coloured gold in the form of a lamp or balance.
1890 W. G. McMillan Treat. Electro-metallurgy x. 217 The anode should be made of the purest gold obtainable; the presence of silver and copper..is fatal, because these..produce a bath which deposits a coloured gold.
1909 Metal Industry (New York) Sept. 331/1 The old jewelers were content with very few alloys—18 karat gold for rings, ‘colored’ gold (that is, 12 to 15 karat), and ‘bright’ gold for pin stems and brooch tongs, being all that they required.
2012 DNA (Nexis) 24 Apr. The jeweller is specialized in the latest variation of fashionable ornaments, diamond, rubies, emeralds, silver, platinum jewellery and coloured gold.
coloured hearing n. a form of synaesthesia in which the hearing of a sound is associated with a sensation of colour; cf. slightly earlier colour hearing n. at colour n.1 Compounds 4.
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1883 Med. News 10 Mar. 277/1 It seems to us that the appellation ‘Colored Hearing’ is more applicable to this class of cases than the title ‘Color Hearing’ which has heretofore been used.
1937 Sunday Express 21 Feb. 10/3 Five out of every hundred people have ‘coloured hearing’.
2007 Brain 130 3051/1 No amount of knowledge or additional experience can stop me seeing straight lines as bent in the Hering illusion, or prevent a synaesthete prone to coloured hearing from experiencing the hue of cries.
coloured pencil n. a pencil with a coloured core made from pigmented wax or similar material, rather than graphite; drawing or colouring done with pencils of this type.
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society > communication > writing > writing materials > writing instrument > [noun] > pencil > other types of pencil
coloured pencil1735
colour pencil1799
propelling pencil1852
programme pencil1868
copying pencil1883
grease pencil1890
chinagraph pencil1943
pencil crayon1953
1735 J. Barrow Dict. Polygraphicum II. at Miniature This gum-water must be kept in a bottle always stopped close, and never dip a coloured pencil into it.
1820 Times 17 Nov. 4/5 (advt.) A quantity coloured pencils, picture frames, and numerous articles.
1950 Harrisburg (Illinois) Daily Reg. 4 Apr. 5/1 Color one..of the..sketches..with any type of colouring—crayola, water coloring, colored pencil, etc.
1997 C. Ozick Puttermesser Papers (1998) 78 The biggest City agency..delivers colored pencils and finger paints and tambourines to nurseries.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, September 2011; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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