colored
adjective · noun
Simple meaning
Sometimes used in combination.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
kuhlerdSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈkʌlɚd
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
adjective
Having color or a certain color; sometimes used in combination
in combination
Having a particular color or kind of color.
Having prominent colors; colorful.
Alternative letter-case form of colored ("non-white, or mixed race"). [Having a color.]
Biased; pervasively (but potentially subtly) influenced in a particular way.
noun
south africa
A person having ancestry from more than one of the racial groups of Southern Africa (black, white, and Asian); a colored person.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- B1 · Intermediate (estimated)
- Frequency
- Common
- Typical Use
- Everyday English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: Having color or a certain color; sometimes used in combination
Used this way, colored is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- No strong connotation
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use colored
- “Colored crepe paper.”adjective
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Inflected forms
Grammatical variations of the same word.
A visual attribute of things that results from the light they emit or transmit or reflect.
Word family
Words built from the same root.
The timbre of a musical sound.
Having much or varied color.
Lacking in variety and interest.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
A form of chromesthesia in which experiences of color accompany auditory stimuli.
A form of chromesthesia in which experiences of color accompany auditory stimuli.
Courser of desert and semidesert regions of the Old World.
Having a relatively small amount of coloring agent.
Glossy black bird with pink back and abdomen.
Glossy black bird with pink back and abdomen.
Related words
Connected by subject or meaning, not by word formation.
A wash of whitewash or other water-base paint tinted with a colored pigment.
A picture book with line drawings intended to be colored with crayons by children.
Related Words
Connected to the same idea, not synonyms.
More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.