palette

Noun

palette (plural palettes)

1. (painting) A thin board on which a painter lays and mixes colours.
2. A set of colours available to be used (or mixed).
   • Use your mouse to select the colour you want to use from the circular colour palette.
3. The range of colors in a given work or item or body of work.
   • The unified colour palette of reds, blues, and yellows used throughout the signage matches that of the institution’s logo and letterhead.2019, Li Huang, James Lambert, “Another Arrow for the Quiver: A New Methodology for Multilingual Researchers”, in Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, →DOI, page 5
4. The range of tones or tone colors in a given musical composition or performance.
5. A set of makeup including a variety of colors, often packaged together in a tray.
   • She removed an eyeshadow palette from her bag.
6. A visual selection of colours, tools, commands, etc.
   • It would be extremely beneficial to have the right subassemblies with the parameters already set available on your tool palette.2011, James Wedding, Dana Probert, Mastering AutoCAD Civil 3D 2009, page 394
7. (historical) A plate of armour covering the points of junction at the bend of the shoulders and elbows.
8. A plate against which a person presses their chest to give force to a hand-operated drill.
9. (figuratively, uncommon) Any set or group of limited choices, options, or tasks from all ones that are currently available.
   • For the San Francisco project, he whittled down the palette to a handful of key surfaces, chief among them French limestone, hard oak, and Danish brick—long, slender, stunning.2026 May, Sam Cochran, “Feeling Zen”, in Architectural Digest, volume 83, number 4, page 100