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PlainSpell

colored

/ˈkʌləɹd/adjective, noun, verb

colored is spelled C-O-L-O-R-E-D: 7 letters and 2 syllables. It appears 15 times per million words in written English, the 5,206th most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). As an adjective, colored means “Having a color” (English Wiktionary, September 2026).

How many letters and syllables are in colored?

Letters7: C-O-L-O-R-E-D
Syllables2 (from its American pronunciation)
In writing15 times per million words; the 5,206th most frequent word form
Wrong spellings searchednone measured in search
Pairs people search
Rhymes with

Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation and the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary; 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); rhymes and same-letter words are computed by PlainSpell from its own word list.

How common is colored?

Colored appears 15 times per million words in written English, the 5,206th 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 colored?

  • UK /ˈkʌləd/
  • US /ˈkʌləɹd/
  • Australia /ˈkɐləd/

Colored has 2 syllables (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-colored.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

Words people confuse with colored

Word pairs people search, with the monthly searches for “a vs b” (G: Google, B: Bing, United States).

color vs colored0 B

Also written: coloured.

Sources: Google and Bing searches (September 2025 to August 2026, through DataForSEO); English Wiktionary (homophones, alternative spellings).

What rhymes with colored?

One word on PlainSpell end in the same sounds as colored from its last stressed vowel (/ʌləɹd/):

Computed by PlainSpell from the pronunciations in the English Wiktionary (dump of September 2, 2026): a rhyme shares every sound from the last stressed vowel to the end; ordered by written frequency (wordfreq 3.1).

Forms of colored

  • more colored comparative
  • most colored superlative
  • coloured UK
  • coloreds plural

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

What does colored mean?

The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).

adjective

  1. 1

    USHaving a color.

    Wash colored items separately from whites and darks to prevent the colors from bleeding.

  2. 2

    USHaving a particular color or kind of color.

    The room was red, with a dark-colored rug.

  3. 3

    USHaving prominent colors; colorful.

    The singer wore a colored shirt.

  4. 4

    USBiased; pervasively (but potentially subtly) influenced in a particular way.

  5. 5

    USdatedoffensiveOf skin color other than white; in particular, black.

  6. 6

    USBelonging to a multiracial ethnic group or category, having ancestry from more than one of the racial groups of Southern Africa (black, white, and Asian). (Under apartheid, used as a metadescription for mixed-race people and peoples such as the Cape Coloureds.)

    Most of the colored community speaks Afrikaans, whereas languages like Xhosa or Venda are typically spoken by blacks and English is spoken mostly by whites.

  7. 7

    USDesignated for use by colored people (in either the US or South African sense).

    a colored drinking fountain

noun

  1. 1

    USA colored article of clothing.

  2. 2

    USA person having ancestry from more than one of the racial groups of Southern Africa (black, white, and Asian); a colored person.

  3. 3

    USdatedoffensiveA colored (nonwhite) person.

verb

  1. 1

    USsimple past and past participle of color (a form of color)

adjective

as Colored
  1. 1

    Alternative letter-case form of colored (“non-white, or mixed race”).

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

Colored in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

LanguageWords
Portuguesecolorido (having a color), colorido/pintado de (having a particular kind of color), de cor (US: of skin color other than the white…)
Frenchcoloré, de couleur (having a particular kind of color), en couleur (colorful), marqué (influenced pervasively but subtly), personne de couleur (colored person), couleurs (colored article of clothing)
Germanfarbig (having a particular kind of color), bunt (colorful), Farbiger, Farbige (colored person)
Spanishde color (US: of skin color other than the white…)

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 colored come from?

From color + -ed.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

What to look up after colored