colours
noun
Form of colour , plural of colour.
Simple meaning
A flag that shows its nationality.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
kuhlerzSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈkʌlɚz
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.
noun
nautical
A flag that shows its nationality
nautical
Flag denoting the nationality of a vessel, flown from the stern.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- B1 · Intermediate (estimated)
- Frequency
- Common
- Typical Use
- General English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: A flag that shows its nationality
Used this way, colours is a specialist word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. This is a nautical use: it is standard at sea and largely unfamiliar ashore.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Specialist/technical
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Specialized
- Connotation
- Clinical and technical
- Usage feel
- Technical and specialized
Where it naturally appears
- Sailing/maritime
- Technical/specialist writing
Usage note
In general conversation this sense usually needs explaining — outside its field, people reach for a plainer word.
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.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Inflected forms
Grammatical variations of the same word.
Having or capable of producing colors.
Word family
Words built from the same root.
Striking in variety and interest.
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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.