color (English)

Where does "color" come from?

English color came through Middle English colour, borrowed from Anglo-Norman colur and Old French colour, both from Latin color. In Latin, the word ultimately goes back to Proto-Indo-European *ḱel-, meaning “to hide” or “to cover,” and over time it came to mean the visible quality of hue. The modern American spelling color was later promoted by Noah Webster to align with the Latin form and to keep related words like colorless and coloration consistent.

Full etymology tree

• color (English), 'The spectral composition of visible light.'
  • derived from colour (Middle English), 'colour, hue, shade'
    • borrowed from colur (Anglo-Norman)
      • borrowed from colour (Old French), 'alternative form of color'
        • borrowed from color (Latin), 'color (US), colour (UK); shade, hue, tint'
          • inherited from *kelōs (Proto-Italic)
            • inherited from *ḱel- (Proto-Indo-European), 'to cover'
  • derived from color (Middle English)
    • borrowed from colur (Anglo-Norman)
      • borrowed from colour (Old French), 'alternative form of color'
        • borrowed from color (Latin), 'color (US), colour (UK); shade, hue, tint'
          • inherited from *kelōs (Proto-Italic)
            • inherited from *ḱel- (Proto-Indo-European), 'to cover'

Direct ancestors

• colour (Middle English)
• colour (Old French)
• color (Latin)
• couleur (English)

Updated March 2026

Etymology data from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0 · About Miraris