coloured, colored, ppl. a.
(ˈkʌləd)
[f. colour v. or n. + -ed.]
1. a. Having a colour or colours; ‘diversified with variety of hues’ (J.).
Strictly, exclusive of black and white; also, exclusive of what is the normal or prevailing hue; thus in Bot. the coloured parts of plants are those which are other than green. Often with the name of a particular colour prefixed, as in blue-coloured, etc. coloured vision: see vision.
| c 1325 [see colour v. 1]. c 1400 Destr. Troy 3757 Crispe herit was the kyng, colouret as gold. 1523 Fitzherb. Husb. §68 A coloured horse that hath moch white on hym. 1584 R. Scot Discov. Witchcr. iii. xix. 258 The coloured and the cleare glasses. 1611 Bible Rev. xvii. 3 A scarlet coloured beast. 1665 Boyle Occas. Refl. v. v. 313 A gentleman..chancing to come in a colour'd suit. 1807 J. E. Smith Phys. Bot. 168 Coloratum, coloured, expresses any colour in a leaf besides green. 1858 Mrs. Carlyle Lett. II. 362 A large coloured map on excessively thick paper. 1872 E. Peacock Mabel Heron I. ix. 150 A coloured flannel shirt. Mod. White or coloured shirts. |
† b. fig. in Music. Figurate: see quot. Obs.
| 1609 Douland Ornith. Microl. 78 The Counter-point is two-fold, Simple and Coloured..The Coloured Counter-point is the constitution of a Song of diuers parts by diuers figures, and differing Concords. |
c. fig. of literary style, etc.
| 1855 Macaulay Hist. Eng. IV. 381 The most..vividly coloured picture of the English Court. 1873 Morley Rousseau II. 28 That fresh, full, highly-coloured style. |
d. coloured audition or coloured hearing [cf. G. farbiges hören, F. audition colorée]: the perception of certain colours accompanying the hearing of sounds; = colour-hearing (colour n.1 19), chromæsthesia; coloured clothes, civilian clothes (Services' colloq.).
| 1797 St. Vincent in J. S. Tucker Mem. Earl of St. Vincent (1844) I. x. 427 The Commander-in-chief having seen several Officers of the fleet on shore dressed like shop⁓keepers, in coloured clothes, [etc.]. 1829 J. Shipp Mem. Mil. Career ii. 33 One..asked me if I knew where to sell my coloured clothes. a 1876 G. Calladine Diary (1922) ii. 13 One of my old companions proffered a suit of coloured clothes. 1890 W. James Princ. Psychol. I. viii. 205 That curious idiosyncrasy of ‘colored hearing’ of which a few cases have been lately described..by foreign writers. a 1901 F. W. H. Myers Human Personality (1903) II. ix. 270 The synæsthesiæ, which have only of late years been noted between the ordinary senses—of which ‘coloured audition’, or sound-seeing, is the accepted type—may be carried yet further. 1937 Sunday Express 21 Feb. 10/3 Five out of every hundred people have ‘coloured hearing’. |
2. a. Of the complexion; esp. with defining words, as fresh-coloured, ill-coloured, well-coloured, etc.
| c 1400 Mandeville (Roxb.) xxxii. 147 Riȝt faire folk and wele coloured. c 1540 Boorde The boke for to Lerne D j a, It doth..make a man loke euyll colored. 1621 Burton Anat. Mel. i. ii. iii. xv. (1651) 12 They [Students] are most part lean, dry, ill-coloured. 1799 Med. Jrnl. II. 45 The child has appeared fresh coloured and easy. |
b. spec. Having a skin other than ‘white’; esp. wholly or partly of Black or ‘coloured’ descent. In S. Afr. Of mixed black or brown and white descent; also (with capital initial), of or belonging to the population group of such mixed descent. Cape Coloured: see cape n.3 4.
| 1611 Speed Theat. Gt. Brit. xxv. (1614) 49/1 Their..coloured countenances, and curled haire. 1760–72 tr. Juan & Ulloa's Voy. I. iii. iii. 121 The..Negro women, or the coloured women as they are called here. 1832 Marryat N. Forster xxi, ‘Au cachot!’ cried all the coloured girls. 1838 W. B. Boyce Notes S. Afr. Affairs 134 The coloured population are..demoralized in large towns in the neighbourhood of canteens. 1844 Gilchrist Cape of Good Hope ii. 20 The native population of the colony is generally called Hottentot, or bastard Hottentot, most of the coloured people approaching pretty nearly to the Hottentot formation, and some presenting a greater or smaller mixture of other, principally European, blood. 1850 Mrs. Stowe Uncle Tom's C. xviii. 182 Among the coloured circles of New Orleans. 1880 Print Trades Jrnl. xxxi. 5 Frederic Douglass, the celebrated coloured orator. 1897 Schulz & Hammar New Africa i. 15 Half-breeds, who are known by the distinctive title of ‘coloured people’, in differentiation from the natives up-country. 1958 New Statesman 12 Apr. 454/3 The new House will contain 163 members, four of them representing the newly separate Coloured electorate in the Cape. |
c. Of or belonging to Black people.
| 1866 Howells Venet. Life v. 14 Our own coloured melodies. 1878 N. Amer. Rev. CXXVI. 387 If state governments are opposed to coloured suffrage. |
† 3. Made to look well: a. Fair-seeming, specious, plausible.
| a 1420 Hoccleve De Reg. Princ. 79 No colourede excusacioun. 1576 Fleming Panoplie Ep. 193 He spared no coloured pretence to allure the vulgar sort. |
b. Glossed over, so as to appear right or good.
| 1555 in Froude Hist. Eng. VI. 378 The kings coloured and too shamefully suffered adultery. 1557 N. T. (Genev.) 1 Thess. ii. 5 Nether dyd we any thing in coulored couetousnes. |
c. Feigned, pretended, simulated.
| 1543 Grafton Contn. Harding 449 A false fained and coloured frende. 1574 tr. Marlorats' Apocalips 31 Contenting himselfe with coloured holinesse. 1589 Puttenham Eng. Poesie iii. vii. (Arb.) 166 To allow such manner of forraine and coulored talke to make the iudges affectioned. 1610 J. Guillim Heraldry iii. iv. (1660) 117 A Hypocrites coloured zeal. |
Hence (in sense 2 b) as n. Freq. in pl.
| 1938 N. Devitt Spell of S. Afr. xxiv. 207 The bulk of the menial labour is done by coloureds who are not highly paid for their services. 1955 Times 30 June 8/3 A hostility which has isolated African members of the staff at Fort Hare just as much as the European, and has been shared to some extent, too, by the few Indians and Coloureds who also study there. 1957 C. MacInnes City of Spades i. xi. 80 A spot where fine young American coloureds can destroy themselves with female white trash. 1965 Listener 23 Sept. 453/2 In his own country [he] will put on his ‘to let’ signs ‘no coloureds please’. |
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Add: 4. Particle Physics. Possessing the quantum property of colour (colour n.1 17).
| 1972 Acta Physica Austriaca Suppl. IX. 738 We are then faced with two alternatives: one is that there are three quarks, fictitious and obeying funny statistics; the other is that there are actually three triplets of real quarks... In the latter case we would replace the singlet restriction with the assumption that the low lying states are singlets and one has to pay a large price in energy to get the colored SU3 excited. 1975 Sci. Amer. June 60/3 One of a class of proposed interpretations of the psi particles suggests that they may be the first observed states of colored matter. 1977 Dædalus Fall 33 The colored particles include the gluons themselves, which is presumably why gluons have never been observed as real particles. 1981 D. Wilkinson in J. H. Mulvey Nature of Matter i. 26 The gluons that flit between the coloured quarks must also carry colour. |
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▸ coloured pencil n. a pencil with a coloured rather than graphite core; colouring done with pencils of this type.
| 1735 J. Barrow Dict. Polygraphicum II. at Miniature, This gum-water must be kept in a bottle always stopped close, and never dip a *coloured pencil into it. 1820 Times 17 Nov. 4/5 (advt.) A quantity coloured pencils, picture frames, and numerous articles. 1950 Harrisburg (Illinois) Daily Reg. 4 Apr. 5/1 Color one..of the..sketches..with any type of colouring—crayola, water coloring, colored pencil, etc. 1997 C. Ozick Puttermesser Papers (1998) 78 The biggest City agency..delivers colored pencils and finger paints and tambourines to nurseries. |