Word.ws English Dictionary

butter yellow

butter yellow noun: a light, soft yellow colour.

Noun

butter yellow (countable and uncountable, plural butter yellows)

  1. A light, soft yellow colour.
    • The year’s defining color is hiding in plain sight. Butter yellow (yes, the pastel between canary and beige) has been on the rise for the past few years, and we’ve seen it splashed across enough recent runways and style influencers to finally make a call: The soft, silky shade is about to go...2024 February 22, Jake Henry Smith, “Butter Yellow Will Be Everywhere This Year—Here’s How to Style It”, in Glamour
  2. An azo dye with the formula C₆H₅N₂C₆H₄N(CH₃)₂, used as a food additive in butter and margarine before its toxicity was recognized.
    Synonyms:
    methyl yellow

Adjective

butter yellow (comparative more butter yellow, superlative most butter yellow)

  1. Having a light, soft yellow colour.
    • Don’t be afraid to invest in a cute spring dress, a high-end bag, or a pair of loafers; the shade isn’t going away anytime soon. Shop some of our favorite butter yellow pieces (for every season, mind you) below.2024 February 22, Jake Henry Smith, “Butter Yellow Will Be Everywhere This Year—Here’s How to Style It”, in Glamour

Synonyms of butter yellow

  • methyl yellow

Forms of butter yellow

Noun
pluralbutter yellows
alternative formbutter-yellow
Adjective
comparativemore butter yellow
superlativemost butter yellow

Questions about butter yellow

What does butter yellow mean?
Butter yellow means a light, soft yellow colour.
What part of speech is butter yellow?
Butter yellow can be a noun or an adjective.
What is the plural of butter yellow?
The plural of butter yellow is butter yellows.

Words near butter yellow in the dictionary

  1. Butter Week
  2. butter will not melt in someone's mouth
  3. butter won't melt in someone's mouth
  4. butter would not melt in someone's mouth
  5. butter wouldn't melt in someone's mouth
  6. butter yellow
  7. butter yellows
  8. butter-and-egg man
  9. butter-and-egg men
  10. butter-and-egg money
  11. butter-and-egger

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: butter yellow (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “butter yellow.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/butter_yellow. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.