colour box
/ˈkʌlə bɒks/(US color box)
noun
1A box containing a colour or colours; specifically a portable box for holding an artist's paints, brushes, etc., a paint box.
2 Manufacturing Technology. A box from which printing rollers in a machine pick up coloured ink or pigment. Now historical.
3A large box containing an arrangement of prisms and mirrors, devised by Clerk Maxwell for combining the colours of the spectrum in any required proportion. Now historical.
- Maxwell mentioned the box in his paper ‘On the Theory of Compound Colours, and the Relations of the Colours of the Spectrum’ (Philos. Trans. (Royal Soc.) (1860) 150 65, 78–9), but did not there call it a ‘colour box’. For a description of the construction and use of the box, see Optics & Laser Technol. (2006) 38 213–15..
Origin
Mid 18th century; earliest use found in Arts Companion. From colour + box.
- crystallise
- crystallite
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