color
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
Letters
5 characters
Language
English
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "color", 5-letters, with pronunciation in International Phonetic Alphabet notation, etymology traced through Germanic and Romance roots where applicable, common misspelling variants catalogued from Hunspell error dictionaries, and usage frequency ranked against the top 100,000 English words in the Wordfreq corpus. PlainSpell covers English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German spelling with confusable-pair detection that highlights visually and phonetically similar words. This entry for "color" includes synonyms, antonyms, homophones, and cross-language translation pointers sourced from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org extract. Whether you are verifying the correct spelling of "color" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
color is aEnglishnoun. It means: The spectral composition of visible light. Pronounced /ˈkʌl.ə/. It ranks #1,298 in English word frequency. Often confused with cor and coo.
| 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) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for color is 5 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈkʌl.ə/. Corpus data places it at rank #1,298 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text.Wiktionary records 25 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 7 documented wrong-spelling variants for color, with forms such as "ccolor", "cloor", and "collor". Each variant represents a distinct typo pattern that appears often enough in corpora to be worth flagging, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution.It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "cor", "coo", "cool", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
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 … Root origin matters for spelling because borrowed morphemes (Greek, Latin, Old French, Old English) carry their source-language orthographic conventions into modern English, which is why historical etymology is often the cleanest predictor of whether a cluster like "-ough", "-eau", or "-tion" will appear. For readers arriving here from a spelling check, the authoritative guidance is: the correct English form is color, spelled C-O-L-O-R, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
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.
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
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for color
Misspelling Variants of "color"
Frequency rank: #1,298 in English
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter C in our English index: