colorism
colorism noun: prejudice or bias against persons on the basis of their skin color or complexion, often among persons of the same racial identification.
Noun
colorism (usually uncountable, plural colorisms)
- Prejudice or bias against persons on the basis of their skin color or complexion, often among persons of the same racial identification.
- Black America used to be, and perhaps still is, a pigmentocracy, which means that the social hierarchy is based largely on colorism.2011, Don Lemon, Transparent, Las Vegas: Farrah Gray, →ISBN
- This type of preferential colorism isn’t only found in the church aisles, it’s at family gatherings, on the dating scene, in the classroom, on the playground—it’s everywhere.2019, Alicia Williams, “2019 Kirkus Prize Finalists: Alicia D. Williams on Writing Genesis Begins Again”, in Kirkus Reviews, retrieved 15 Apr 2021
- A style of painting characterised by the use of intense color.
- Turner's colorism with its cosmic world view had nothing to do with realism, in spite of its impasto handling of colour. […] Turner's images are based on the far-sighted and purely objective views of the 18th century which he imbued with new meaning through his colorism based on colour theory and...2002, Robert Suckale, edited by Ingo F. Walther, Masterpieces of Western Art, Taschen, →ISBN, page 419
colorism meaning in Hindi and Tamil
colorism in Hindi
- colorism, apartheid
- रंगभेद raṅgbhed
colorism in Tamil
- prejudice or bias against persons on the basis of their skin color or complexion, often among persons of the same racial identification
- நிறவெறி niṟaveṟi
Examples of colorism in a sentence
- Colorism from your own people feels worse than racism – at the very least your own family and people should welcome you, no?2019 April 18, Pariha Laila Begum, quotee, “Shades of Black: how readers responded to our series on the colorism taboo”, in The Guardian:
- Eliminating racism and colorism is, of course, a worthy pursuit, but it’s also impossible to do in the abstract.2020 July 29, E. Tammy Kim, “The Perils of “People of Color””, in The New Yorker:
- Like those, James’s season still gave noticeably less screen time to its Black contestants—and because of James’s Blackness, the colorism that has always plagued The Bachelor became more visible.2021 March 15, Kovie Biakolo, “The Bachelor’s “Groundbreaking” Season Was a Representation Nightmare”, in Vanity Fair:
Forms of colorism
| plural | colorisms |
|---|---|
| alternative UK | colourism |
Origin of colorism
From color + -ism.
Questions about colorism
- What does colorism mean?
- Colorism means prejudice or bias against persons on the basis of their skin color or complexion, often among persons of the same racial identification.
- What is colorism in Hindi?
- Colorism in Hindi is रंगभेद (raṅgbhed). See Colorism meaning in Hindi.
- How do you use colorism in a sentence?
- Colorism from your own people feels worse than racism – at the very least your own family and people should welcome you, no?
- What part of speech is colorism?
- Colorism is a noun.
- What is the plural of colorism?
- The plural of colorism is colorisms.
Words near colorism in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: colorism (page history and authors); रंगभेद (Hindi) (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: “colorism.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/colorism. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.