Word.ws English Dictionary

coloring inside the lines

coloring inside the lines is the present participle and gerund of color inside the lines.

Meaning of color inside the lines

Verb

color inside the lines (third-person singular simple present colors inside the lines, present participle coloring inside the lines, simple past and past participle colored inside the lines)

  1. (intransitive) To behave conventionally, to follow the rules.
    • Too many don'ts had crimped their creativity and blocked out the wealth of dos. I admire the high standards embraced by my Christian students, but my heart also aches for those who have been raised to simply color inside the lines.2008, Craig Detweiler, A Purple State of Mind, →ISBN, page 55

Questions about coloring inside the lines

What is coloring inside the lines the present participle and gerund of?
Coloring inside the lines is the present participle and gerund of color inside the lines.

Words near coloring inside the lines in the dictionary

  1. coloring
  2. coloring book
  3. coloring books
  4. coloring by number
  5. coloring in
  6. coloring inside the lines
  7. coloring outside the lines
  8. coloring pencil
  9. coloring pencils
  10. coloring up
  11. colorings

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: coloring inside the lines (page history and authors); color inside the lines (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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