colored

English

A "white" and a "colored" (7) water fountain, now in a museum.

Alternative forms

Etymology

Etymology tree
Proto-Indo-European *ḱel-
Proto-Indo-European *-os
Proto-Indo-European *-s
Proto-Indo-European *-ōs
Proto-Indo-European *ḱélōs
Proto-Italic *kelōs
Old Latin colōs
Latin color
Old French color
Anglo-Norman colurbor.
Middle English colour
English color
English -ed
English colored

    From color + -ed.

    Pronunciation

    Adjective

    colored (comparative more colored, superlative most colored) (American spelling)

    1. Having a color.
      Synonyms: see Thesaurus:colored
      Wash colored items separately from whites and darks to prevent the colors from bleeding.
    2. (in combination) Having a particular color or kind of color.
      The room was red, with a dark-colored rug.
      • 2024 July 23, Lilit Marcus, “Japan may be sick of mass tourism. But the deer in this ancient UNESCO-listed city love it”, in CNN‎[2], Atlanta, Ga.: Warner Bros. Discovery, archived from the original on 16 April 2026:
        Nara and its deer are so closely associated that the light-brown colored animals are pictured in the city’s tourism ads, on buses, train tickets and more.
    3. Having prominent colors; colorful.
      The singer wore a colored shirt.
    4. Biased; pervasively (but potentially subtly) influenced in a particular way.
      • 1948, 80th United States Congress, Jurisdictional Disputes in the Motion-Picture Industry, volume 3, Washington: Government Printing Office, →OCLC, page 1966:
        Mr. Brewer gave me his version of the history of the Conference of Studio Unions. It appeared to me then and appears to me now to have been a very colored view.
      • 1949 January, Glenn D. Everett, “Putting the President On the Market Page”, in Nieman Reports, volume 3, number 1, Cambridge: Society of Nieman Fellows, →ISSN, page 26:
        But by and large, a majority of Sanduskians never read any newspaper other than the local journal and I am convinced that they get a far more colored view of national news than they did when the city had competing dailies.
      • 2001, Bernard H. Boar, The Art of Strategic Planning for Information Technology, 2nd edition, New York: John Wiley & Sons, →ISBN, page 93:
        The organization's traditions and culture are inwardly focused. It is not conceivable that an alternative solution could exist. This results in a very colored view of the marketplace.
    5. (US, now dated and usually offensive) Of skin color other than white; in particular, black.
      • 1898, William H. Chenery, The Fourteenth Regiment Rhode Island Heavy Artillery (colored) in the War to Preserve the Union, 1861-1865, page 38:
        […] a beautiful silk standard donated to the Third Battalion by the colored ladies of the city of New York, was formally presented to the battalion.
      • 1967, “Cowboys & Colored People”‎[3]performed by Flip Wilson:
        He made a smart remark about colored people and I got mad. I got mad because I like colored people. In fact, a colored lady raised me. Some of my best friends are colored people.
      • 1973, Stevie Wonder, “Living for the City”, in Innervisions:
        To find a job is like a haystack needle / Because where he lives they don't use colored people
      • 2003, Joan Steinau Lester, “Far from U Street”, in Eleanor Holmes Norton: Fire in My Soul, New York, N.Y.: Atria Books, →ISBN, part 1 (Full of the Faith That the Dark Past Has Taught Us), page 70:
        Harriet [Blackburn] had “all the clothes, the styles and all the values of the black bourgeoisie,” Eleanor laughs. “Yet we were fast friends ’cause she was a colored girl, by which I mean we were of the same culture.”
    6. (South Africa, Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe, sometimes capitalized) Belonging 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.)
      Synonym: Eurafrican
      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.
      • 2011, John Bradley, Liz Bradley, Jon Vidar, Victoria Fine, Cape Town: Winelands & the Garden Route, Modern Overland, →ISBN, page 72:
        By the end of the 19th century District Six had become a bustling and heavily populated working class neighborhood whose population was predominantly coloured, Cape Malay and African intermixed with Indian, Chinese, and European migrants.
      • 2014, Shula Marks, Stanley Trapido, editors, The Politics of Race, Class and Nationalism in Twentieth Century South Africa‎[4], Routledge, →ISBN:
        By 1929, many of the Coloured radicals who had been excluded from the ICU had found a temporary home in the Western Cape branch of the African National Congress (ANC).
    7. (chiefly historical) Designated for use by colored people (in either the US or South African sense).
      a colored drinking fountain
      a colored hospital

    Usage notes

    • In regards to people, in British anthropological surveys conducted in 2006 by Peter J. Aspinall and colleagues, none of the 75 general population respondents who identified as “mixed race,” nor the one respondent who did not, reported finding the term “coloured” offensive. By contrast, among student respondents, 11 of the 311 participants who identified as “mixed race,” as well as 15 who did not, reported finding the term offensive.[1] The term “coloured”—also capitalized as “Coloured”—continues to be used in South Africa as an official demographic and census designation. In contrast, within the Americas, the spelling “colored” is generally regarded as antiquated and is often considered taboo, particularly in reference to people.

    Coordinate terms

    (mixed-race):

    Derived terms

    Translations

    The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
    Translations to be checked

    Noun

    colored (plural coloreds) (American spelling)

    1. (laundry) A colored article of clothing.
    2. (South Africa) A person having ancestry from more than one of the racial groups of Southern Africa (black, white, and Asian); a colored person.
      Synonym: Eurafrican
    3. (US, dated and offensive) A colored (nonwhite) person.
      • 2005, “Creed, OK”, in Carnivàle, episode 17:
        When a white fellow gets in the ring with an eight ball the eight ball's got no chance. You see, 'cause they call boxing the sweet science. And that's where your colored just runs into trouble. That's just that science part. / Yeah, but Joe Louis is a big 'un.

    Translations

    colored article of clothing

    Verb

    colored

    1. simple past and past participle of color

    References

    1. ^ Aspinall, Peter J. (April 2009), “'Mixed Race', 'Mixed Origins' or What? Generic Terminology for the Multiple Racial/Ethnic Group Population”, in Houtman, Gustaaf, editor, Anthropology Today‎[1], volume 25, number 2, Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, →DOI, →ISSN, →JSTOR, →OCLC, archived from the original on 15 July 2010, pages 3–8

    Further reading

    Anagrams

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