local color
"local-color" is a 10-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“local color” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 11
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Aspects of a location that distinguish it from neighboring communities; the collective customs, mannerisms, fashions, artwork, accents or traditions of an area.
Corpus desk
Index EN-local-color · local color · English
local color · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-MEGA 11 letters
- VOW-4 4 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-THIN "L" thin
- PHOTO-UNK Peer pending
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.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | local color |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| Letters | 11 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “local color” in English
Rare enough to double-check
local color is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as anoun. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Aspects of a location that distinguish it from neighboring communities; the collective customs, mannerisms, fashions, artwork, accents or traditions of an area.".
local color has no tracked misspelling variants, since its letter sequence doesn't invite the usual edit-distance slips. Our confusable-pair dataset has no match for it, which tends to mean the word is visually distinctive enough to stand on its own.
This entry carries no recorded etymology, leaving phoneme-to-grapheme mapping as the best guide to its spelling rather than a borrowing history. The correct English form is local color, spelled L-O-C-A-L- -C-O-L-O-R.
Definition
- 1Aspects of a location that distinguish it from neighboring communities; the collective customs, mannerisms, fashions, artwork, accents or traditions of an area.
Recorded use
Wiktionary exampleThese source excerpts show how local color appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
We would like to have it illustrated by Mr. Tortoni, some of whose work you may have seen, and would be glad to know whether he may call upon you in order to acquaint himself with the local colour of your neighbourhood.
This word in other languages
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.