color

color n

1 Color, hue, shade, tint, tinge, tone are comparable when they mean a property or attribute of a visible thing that is recognizable only when rays of light fall upon the thing and that is distinct from properties (as shape or size) apparent in dusk.

Color is the ordinary term and, in precise use, the only generic term of this group. It may apply to the quality of blood which one describes as redness, of grass as greenness, of the sky as blueness, of snow as whiteness, or of ebony as blackness, or to the optical sensation which one experiences when one sees these things respectively as red, green, blue, white, and black. It may refer to any of the bands of the spectrum or to any of the variations produced by or as if by combination of one or more of these with another or with white, black, or gray

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Walden is blue at one time and green at another. . .. Lying between the earth and the heavens, it partakes of the color of both— Thoreau

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Color is also specifically applicable to the attribute of things seen as red, yellow, blue, orange, green, purple (the chromatic colors) as distinct from the attribute of things seen as black, white, or gray (the achromatic colors)

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give a white house touches of color by painting the window sashes and shutters green

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Hue, especially in poetry or elevated prose, is often synonymous with color

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as brown in hue as hazelnuts and sweeter than the kernels— Shak.

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all the gradational hues of the spectrum from red through yellow, green, blue, to violet— Scientific Monthly

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More specifically, hue suggests some modification of color

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their shining green has changed to a less vivid hue; they are taking bluish tones here and there— Hearn

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Shade is often used in the sense of one of the gradations of a color, especially as its hue is affected by its brilliance

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seek a darker shade of blue

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a brighter shade of green

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various shades of gray

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the dark ultramarine of the west turns a shade paler— J. C. Van Dyke

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Tint is also used as meaning a gradation of color in respect to brilliance, but it always suggests hue and is commonly used in reference to light colors that seem to be given by a light or delicate touching; thus, what are often called "pastel colors" or "pastel shades" are known also as tints. The term is not infrequently used in contrast to shade, especially when the latter word connotes comparative darkness or dullness

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the flags by the shore were turning brown; a tint of yellow was creeping up the rushes— Jefferies

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dark it appeared, but the precise tint was indeterminable— Hudson

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the sprays of bloom which adorn it are merely another shade of the red earth walls, and its fibrous trunk is full of gold and lavender tints— Cather

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Tinge implies more of interfusion or stain than tint

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autumn bold, with universal tinge of sober gold— Keats

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the water . . . imparts to the body of one bathing in it a yellowish tinge— Thoreau

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Tone is a rather general word, sometimes equivalent to color but more often suggesting hue or a modification of hue (as a tint or tinge)

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from strand to cloud-capped peak, the tone was purple— Beebe

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tone, which he plays with as has no other of the moderns, modifying color brightness to achieve his foreseen tonal harmony— Cheney

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Nearly all of these terms carry extended meanings derived from or related to the senses previously considered.

Color usually suggests an outward character or aspect such as may be changed by circumstances

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your love for him has changed its color since you have found him not to be the saint you thought him— Hardy

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it had been an essentially aristocratic movement .... But . . . it took on a strongly democratic color— Mencken

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or may be imparted to a thing to brighten and vivify it

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people talk of matters which I had believed to be worn threadbare by use, and yet communicate a rich color . . . to them— Benson

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Hue is less often so used than color; it usually suggests a character rather than an aspect, but it does not necessarily imply an ingrained character

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our mental hue depends . . . completely on the social atmosphere in which we move— Horace Smith

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Tint applies to a character that is not dominant but imparted as if by contact or influence

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our inborn spirits have a tint of thee— Byron

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Shade and tinge are used in the sense of trace, touch, trifle (for this sense, see TOUCH)

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eyes that. . . had some tinge of the oriental— Edmund Wilson

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a shade less cordial than usual

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a tinge of sadness

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2 usually in plural colors *flag, ensign, standard, banner, streamer, pennant, pendant, pennon, jack