colored

UK/ˈkʌləd//ˈkʌləɹd/

colored adjective: having a color. Also the simple past and past participle of color.

Image: David Wilson, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Adjective (1)

colored (comparative more colored, superlative most colored)

(US) Having a color.
- Wash colored items separately from whites and darks to prevent the colors from bleeding.
(US, in-compounds) Having a particular color or kind of color.
- The room was red, with a dark-colored rug.
- 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.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
(US) Having prominent colors; colorful.
- The singer wore a colored shirt.
(US) Biased; pervasively (but potentially subtly) influenced in a particular way.
- 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.1948, 80th United States Congress, Jurisdictional Disputes in the Motion-Picture Industry, volume 3, Washington: Government Printing Office, →OCLC, page 1966
- 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.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
(US, dated, offensive, usually) Of skin color other than white; in particular, black.
- […] 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.1898, William H. Chenery, The Fourteenth Regiment Rhode Island Heavy Artillery (colored) in the War to Preserve the Union, 1861-1865, page 38
- 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.1967, “Cowboys & Colored People”performed by Flip Wilson
(Botswana, Namibia, South Africa, US, Zimbabwe, 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.)
- 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.
- 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.2011, John Bradley, Liz Bradley, Jon Vidar, Victoria Fine, Cape Town: Winelands & the Garden Route, Modern Overland, →ISBN, page 72
Synonyms:

Eurafrican
(US, historical) Designated for use by colored people (in either the US or South African sense).
- a colored drinking fountain
- a colored hospital

Noun

colored (plural coloreds)

(US, laundry) A colored article of clothing.
(South Africa, US) A person having ancestry from more than one of the racial groups of Southern Africa (black, white, and Asian); a colored person.

Synonyms:

Eurafrican
(US, dated, offensive) A colored (nonwhite) person.
- 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.2005, “Creed, OK”, in Carnivàle, episode 17

Adjective (2) capitalized: Colored

Colored (not comparable)

Alternative letter-case form of colored (“non-white, or mixed race”).

Also used as

colored is also the simple past and past participle of color.

colored meaning in Marathi, Arabic, Persian and Vietnamese

colored in Marathi

having a color: रंगीत raṅgīt

colored in Arabic

having a color: مُلَوَّن mulawwan

colored in Persian

having a particular kind of color: رنگین rangin

colored in Vietnamese

US: of skin color other than the white, particularly black: da màu

Examples of colored in a sentence

This results in a very colored view of the marketplace.2001, Bernard H. Boar, The Art of Strategic Planning for Information Technology, 2nd edition, New York: John Wiley & Sons, →ISBN, page 93:
To find a job is like a haystack needle / Because where he lives they don't use colored people1973, Stevie Wonder, “Living for the City”, in Innervisions:
“Yet we were fast friends ’cause she was a colored girl, by which I mean we were of the same culture.”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...
It’s against the law to go to the colored section.1957 September 5, Jack Kerouac, On the Road, New York, N.Y.: Viking Press, →OCLC:

All 40 example sentences with colored

Synonyms of colored

Antonyms

Forms of colored

Adjective
comparative	more colored
superlative	most colored
alternative UK	coloured
alternative US	Colored
alternative UK	Coloured
Noun
plural	coloreds

Origin of colored

From color + -ed.

Words formed from colored

Phrases with colored

1 more phrasesFewer phrases

wore rose colored glasses

Questions about colored

What does colored mean?: Colored means having a color.
What is colored in Marathi?: Colored in Marathi is रंगीत (raṅgīt). See Colored meaning in Marathi.
How do you use colored in a sentence?: This results in a very colored view of the marketplace.
What part of speech is colored?: Colored can be an adjective or a noun.
How do you pronounce colored?: Colored is pronounced /ˈkʌləd/ (UK).

Words near colored in the dictionary

Adapted from Wiktionary: colored (page history and authors); Colored (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: 2026-09-02

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-colored.ogg.

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