color
col·or/ˈkʌl.ə(ɹ)/noun, adjective, verb
color is spelled C-O-L-O-R: 5 letters and 2 syllables (col·or). It appears 81 times per million words in written English, the 1,302nd most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). People search “color vs colour” about 2,400 times a month (Google, United States). As a noun, color means “The spectral composition of visible light” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The plural of color is colors.
How many letters and syllables are in color?
| Letters | 5: C-O-L-O-R |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 2: col·or |
| In writing | 81 times per million words; the 1,302nd most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | none measured in search |
| Pairs people search | |
| Sounds like |
Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026).
How common is color?
Color appears 81 times per million words in written English, the 1,302nd most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How do you pronounce color?
- /ˈkʌl.ə/
- UK /ˈkʌl.ə(ɹ)/
- [ˈkʰʌl.ə(ɹ)]
Color has 2 syllables, split col·or in writing.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-color.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Words people confuse with color
Word pairs people search, with the monthly searches for “a vs b” (G: Google, B: Bing, United States).
Sounds like: culler (Wiktionary's homophone list; some hold only in some accents).
Also written: colored.
Sources: Google and Bing searches (September 2025 to August 2026, through DataForSEO); English Wiktionary (homophones, alternative spellings).
Forms of color
- colors plural, present, singular, he/she/it
- colour
- usage notes
- coloring participle, present
- colored participle, past
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does color mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
noun
- 1
The spectral composition of visible light.
Humans and birds can perceive color.
- 2
A particular set of visible spectral compositions, perceived or named as a class.
Most languages have names for the colors black, white, red, and green.
- 3
Hue as opposed to achromatic colors (black, white and grays).
The accident victim's face was white, drained of all color.
- 4
These hues as used in color television or films, color photographs, etc (as opposed to the shades of grey used in black-and-white television).
This film is broadcast in color.
- 5
Any of the standard dark tinctures used in a coat of arms, including azure, gules, sable, and vert.
- 6
A paint.
The artist took out her colors and began work on a landscape.
- 7
Human skin tone, especially as an indicator of race or ethnicity.
Color has been a sensitive issue in many societies.
- 8
Skin color, noted as normal, jaundiced, cyanotic, flush, mottled, pale, or ashen as part of the skin signs assessment.
adjective
- 1
USConveying color, as opposed to shades of gray.
Color television and movies were considered a great improvement over black and white.
verb
- 1
USTo give something color.
We could color the walls red.
- 2
USTo cause (a pipe, especially a meerschaum) to take on a brown or black color, by smoking.
- 3
USTo apply colors to the areas within the boundaries of a line drawing using colored markers or crayons.
My kindergartener loves to color.
- 4
USTo become red through increased blood flow.
Her face colored as she realized her mistake.
- 5
USTo affect without completely changing.
That interpretation certainly colors my perception of the book.
- 6
USinformalTo attribute a quality to; to portray (as).
Color me confused.
- 7
USTo assign colors to the vertices of a graph (or the regions of a map) so that no two vertices connected by an edge (regions sharing a border) have the same color.
Can this graph be 2-colored?
- 8
USTo affect the quality of a speech sound, especially a vowel.
Many languages have a "neutral", roughly central vowel like /a/ or /ə/ which can be colored to a back, rounded vowel like [o] by an adjacent labialized consonant, or to a front, unrounded vowel like [e] by an adjacent palatalized consonant.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How do you abbreviate color?
Wiktionary records 2 abbreviations of color: OC, col.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Color in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | couleur , en couleur , colorer, teinter , colorier , rougir |
| German | Farbe , färben , Farbton , Hautfarbe , Tinktur , Fahne |
| Portuguese | cor , de cor , colorir , enrubescer, corar , cores |
| Spanish | color , en color , colorar, colorear, colorir , ponerse colorado |
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does color come from?
From Middle English colour, color, borrowed from Anglo-Norman colur, from Old French colour, color, from Latin color. Doublet of couleur. Largely displaced English blee, Middle English blee (“color”), from Old English blēo.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).