color
/ˈkʌl.ə/
"color" is a 5-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“color” has 7 generated spelling variants in the English index at frequency #1,298. The variants make it a useful spelling check.
- #1,298
- frequency rank, English
- 5,599
- “C” headwords
- 7
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - The spectral composition of visible light.
Corpus desk
Index EN-color · color · English
color · rank #1,298 · 7 variants · 20 confusables
- FREQ-COMMON #1,298
- LEN-MID 5 letters
- VOW-2 2 vowels
- CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
- VAR-MID 7 variants
- BOOK-DENSE 5,599
- PHOTO-FINISH Christmas
Nearest frequency peer: Christmas (-1 rank slots)
Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
Frequency neighbourhood for “color”
Lower corpus rank = more everyday usage (inverted bar length for readability)
- calls
calls
98,706 corpus weight
- choose
choose
98,705 corpus weight
- Christmas
Christmas
98,704 corpus weight
- color
color
98,703 corpus weight
- commission
commission
98,702 corpus weight
- competition
competition
98,701 corpus weight
What this shows Bars show where “color” sits against the nearest ranked English headwords in the FrequencyWords band, not a reprint of letter-browse containment.
Visual similarity to commonly confused words
How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).
Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | color |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈkʌl.ə/ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #1,298 |
| Misspellings tracked | 7 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “color” sits in English frequency
A misspelling magnet
The generator records 7 spelling variants around color (IPA /ˈkʌl.ə/), anoun. Corpus frequency is #1,298 among 5,599 “C” headwords. Wiktionary lists 25 senses, so context still picks the gloss.
Our generated misspelling index lists 7 likely wrong-spelling variants for color, with forms such as "ccolor", "cloor", and "collor". Every one of these variants traces to a single-character edit -- an added or dropped letter, a swapped consonant, or a vowel swap -- the kind of slip a spell-checker is built to catch. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "cor", "coo", "cool", and more, a pairing that trips writers up because the two words share enough sound or shape to blur together.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English colour, color, borrowed from Anglo-Norman colur, from Old French colour, color, from Latin color. Doublet of couleur. Displaced English blee, Middle English blee (“color”), from Old English blēo. Also partially replaced Old English hīew … The correct English form is color, spelled C-O-L-O-R.
Definition
- 1The spectral composition of visible light.
- 2A subset thereof:
- 3A subset thereof:
- 4A subset thereof:
- 5A subset thereof:
- 6A paint.
- 7Human skin tone, especially as an indicator of race or ethnicity.
- 8Skin color, noted as normal, jaundiced, cyanotic, flush, mottled, pale, or ashen as part of the skin signs assessment.
- 9A flushed appearance of blood in the face; redness of complexion.
- 10Richness of expression; detail or flavour that is likely to generate interest or enjoyment.
- 11A standard, flag, or insignia:
- 12A standard, flag, or insignia:
- 13A standard, flag, or insignia:
- 14An award for sporting achievement, particularly within a school or university.
- 15The morning ceremony of raising the flag.
- 16A property of quarks, with three values called red, green, and blue, which they can exchange by passing gluons; color charge.
- 17A third-order measure of derivative price sensitivity, expressed as the rate of change of gamma with respect to time, or equivalently the rate of change of charm with respect to changes in the underlying asset price.
- 18The relative lightness or darkness of a mass of written or printed text on a page. (See type color on Wikipedia.Wikipedia)
- 19Any of the colored balls excluding the reds.
- 20A front or facade; an ostensible truth actually false; pretext.
- 21An appearance of right or authority; color of law.
- 22Gold, particles of gold found when prospecting.
- 23To bleed, either through injury or blading. Usally prefaced with "get".
- 24Timbre, often in relation to orchestration.
- 25The quality of a particular vowel sound.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how color appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Humans and birds can perceive color.
Most languages have names for the colors black, white, red, and green.
Etymology
From Middle English colour, color, borrowed from Anglo-Norman colur, from Old French colour, color, from Latin color. Doublet of couleur. Displaced English blee, Middle English blee (“color”), from Old English blēo. Also partially replaced Old English hīew (“color”) and its descendants (English hue), which is less often used in this sense. The spelling color was popularized in modern American English by Noah Webster, to match the spelling of the word's Latin etymon, and make all American spellings of the derivatives consistent (colorimeter, coloration, colorize, colorless, etc).
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as:
- ccolor
- cloor
- collor
- colorr
- colro
- coolr
- oclor
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of color - counted as single-character edits (an insertion, a deletion, or a substituted letter). The larger the bar, the easier the typo is to spot; one-edit slips are the ones that sneak past readers.
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 English corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
PlainSpell is rendered directly from structured Wiktionary extracts and open word-frequency lists, no number is typed in by an editor. See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error. Data current as of September 3, 2026. Primary sources: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) and FrequencyWords.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do you spell "color"?
What does "color" mean?
What words are commonly confused with "color"?
How do you pronounce "color"?
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Similar English words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "color", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 5 letters (nearest by frequency rank).
Similar misspelling depth
Headwords with a similar count of attested misspellings (7 here; floor ≥5).
What to do next
You've looked up "color". Here's where to go from here.
- "color" maps to 20 confusable pairs in this vintage; the highest-scored is "cor". View pair
- 7 edit-distance misspelling variants are generated for spell-check research on this headword. See variants
- Usage frequency rank #1,298 among English headwords in this corpus. Corpus statistics
- Browse more English words in the "C" letter cohort. C–Z browse
- PlainSpell rotates a curated Word of the Day from the English corpus, a passive way to discover vocabulary. Word of the Day
PlainSpell is a reference corpus, not spelling advice. Verify unusual forms in context.
Data Source
Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.