palette
/ˈpalɪt
/noun
1A thin board or slab on which an artist lays and mixes colours.The artist's easel, paint box, palettes, paintbrushes and dried tubes of paint occupied a corner....
- The inventory of the contents of his studio made for probate purposes after his death lists a few standard items of equipment - easels, palettes, canvases - but nothing to hint at any unusual working method.
- The portrait is dominated by her own image, holding a palette and a paintbrush in her hands.
1.1The range of colours used by a particular artist or in a particular picture: Pollock’s hard, bright palette...
- His minimalist style of drawing and limited palette of colours are far from painterly, however.
- In this, the colour palette is darker and the drawings simpler and more stylised.
- Its restrained palette, the sinuous, loopy drawing, and the interplay of seemingly simple forms and planes present a highly cerebral visual game.
1.2The range or variety of tonal or instrumental colour in a musical piece: he commands the sort of tonal palette which this music needs...
- His dazzling virtuosity and sweeping tonal palette made the music truly live.
- His musical palette constantly overflows with colour, never garish yet sometimes opulent and sometimes sombre.
- She manages beautifully subtle shifts in tempo without crossing over into the soupy, and she applies a large palette of tonal color tastefully.
1.3(In computer graphics) the range of colours or shapes available to the user.The first lesson details the basics, such as the minimum requirements, and customising the work area, palettes and user interface....
- For example, using tool palettes, users can apply the Door tool to openings, windows and door and window assemblies, converting those objects to door objects.
- As I mentioned before, most of the useful tools are available as tabbed palettes, and this includes several image transformation tools.
Origin
Late 18th century: from French, diminutive of pale 'shovel', from Latin pala 'spade'.