Word.ws English Dictionary

Chinese blue

Chinese blue noun: a artificial blue pigment made from barium copper tetrasilicate (“BaO·CuO·(SiO₂)₄”), used in ancient China from the Western Zhou period (1045 BCE) until the end of the Han dynasty (circa 220 CE).

chinese blue: a artificial blue pigment made from barium copper tetrasilicate (“BaO·CuO·(SiO₂)₄”), used in...
Image: Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

Chinese blue (uncountable)

  1. A artificial blue pigment made from barium copper tetrasilicate (“BaO·CuO·(SiO₂)₄”), used in ancient China from the Western Zhou period (1045 BCE) until the end of the Han dynasty (circa 220 CE).
    Synonyms:
    Han blue

Synonyms of Chinese blue

Origin of Chinese blue

From Chinese + blue. From being an artificial blue pigment invented by the ancient Chinese.

Questions about Chinese blue

What does Chinese blue mean?
Chinese blue means a artificial blue pigment made from barium copper tetrasilicate (“BaO·CuO·(SiO₂)₄”), used in ancient China from the Western Zhou period (1045 BCE) until the end of the Han dynasty (circa 220 CE).
What part of speech is Chinese blue?
Chinese blue is a noun.

Words near Chinese blue in the dictionary

  1. Chinese bayberries
  2. Chinese bayberry
  3. Chinese bellflower
  4. Chinese bellflowers
  5. Chinese bezique
  6. Chinese blue
  7. Chinese box
  8. Chinese boxes
  9. Chinese boxing
  10. Chinese boxthorn
  11. Chinese boxthorns

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Chinese blue (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.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “Chinese blue.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/chinese_blue. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.