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colourless

adjective

Simple meaning

Lacking in variety and interest.

Pronunciation

Say it like this:

kuhlerluhs

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US device voice
IPA pronunciation (US)

ˈkʌlɚləs

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.

Word Review

Definition

Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.

adjective

  1. Having little or no colour.

  2. of a liquid

    Water white.

  3. Lacking in variety and interest

Word at a Glance

Difficulty
C2 · Proficient (estimated)
Frequency
Rare

Word Aura™

How this word commonly comes across.

Aura for this meaning

This meaning: Having little or no colour.

Used this way, colourless 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

Nearby words

  • lurid , a specialist term, precise but narrower

Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.

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Common Patterns and Combinations

How this word naturally appears with others.

nearly colourlesscolourless glasscolourless solutioncolourless fluidperfectly colourlessrather colourlesscolourless facecolourless blood

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Similar Words, What’s the Difference?

Close in meaning, but not always interchangeable.

  • lurid

    Having a brown colour tinged with red.

  • pasty

    Pale, lacking colour, having a pallor.

  • sombre

    Dull or dark in colour or brightness.

  • livid

    Having a dark, bluish appearance.

  • etiolated

    Of an animal or person: having an ashen or pale appearance.

Word Family

Related forms, grouped by how they connect.

Word family

Words built from the same root.

  • colourfuladjectiveDerived adjective

    Striking in variety and interest.

More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin

Synonyms

Sense: having little or no colour

colorlessluridTechnical

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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.