colored

[ kuhl-erd ]

adjective

1. having color.
2. Older Use: Offensive. belonging wholly or in part to any group of nonwhite people, especially to Black people.
3. Older Use: Offensive. pertaining to Black people.
4. influenced or biased:

   colored opinions.

5. specious; deceptive:

   The authorities detected a colored quality in her statement.

6. Botany. of some hue other than green.

noun

1. Older Use: Offensive.
   1. a Black person.
   2. the colored, Black people as a group.
2. Cape Colored.

Sensitive Note

See Black ¹.

Other Words From

• half-colored adjective
• un·colored adjective
• un·colored·ly adverb
• un·colored·ness noun
• under·colored adjective
• well-colored adjective

Word History and Origins

Origin of colored¹

A Middle English word dating back to 1275–1325; color, -ed ³

Example Sentences

One might not immediately make the connection between data and air, but Ouchhh collective’s “AI Data Portal of Los Angeles,” an immersive tunnel of LED screens broadcasting an abstract amalgamation of Excel spreadsheets, documents, graphs and other digital ephemera, reimagines the city’s cloud data as thousands of tiny colored beads.

From Los Angeles Times

“He said, ‘I just don’t understand why you want a colored man’s music in a film with no negros,’” Jones told the San Francisco Chronicle in a 2008 interview.

From Los Angeles Times

But to reduce reflectivity and help the crossing blend in more with the surrounding land, the new crossing’s 27 million pounds of concrete have been colored a shade dubbed “dusty mocha” by the project’s lead designer, Robert Rock, a landscape architect for Chicago-based Living Habitats.

From Los Angeles Times

A few omissions from the show are surprising — especially the so-called “erotic thermometers” formed in industrially colored plastic relief that Craig Kaufmann made in the 1960s, as well as a radiant light-environment by Doug Wheeler.

From Los Angeles Times

His creations range from guitar stands priced at $179 to mid-century-style clocks starting at $300 and pieces of large marquetry — an art form involving inlaid work made from small pieces of variously colored wood or other materials — priced at $1,800.

From Los Angeles Times