Translation
colour; complexion; outward appearance
Examples
mutatur.
The colour of the sky is changing.
.
Flowers have many colours.
.
The garment was black in colour.
.
I see no colour.
.
I do not know the name of the colour.
Color, coloris is a third declension masculine. Older texts spell the nominative colos, which explains the r everywhere else: the stem was colos-, and an s between two vowels turned into an r in early Latin. Honor, honoris and arbor, arboris did the same thing.
Beyond pigment it covers complexion - colorem mutare is to go pale or flush - and the general look of a thing. Rhetoricians use it for the gloss put on an awkward case, which is exactly the modern sense of "putting a colour on it". The word is usually connected with celo, "to conceal", colour being what covers a surface. British English keeps the u from French colour; the Latin has none, so do not let the spelling drift when you write coloris.
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color: worksheet, infographic and listicle
Free printable study downloads for the Latin word "color" (colour; complexion; outward appearance): a worksheet with the answer key built in, an infographic, and a sentence listicle. Open any one to view, print or save.
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Start your free weekThis word is part of lesson 11.