coloration

Etymology

It is borrowed from French coloration (“colour, colouring; the action of colouring”),^[2][3][4][5] which the OED records in Middle French from 1370,^[2] and which Etymonline dates to the 16th century.^[3] The French noun is from Late Latin colōrātiō (“the act of colouring”),^[3][2][6] which in the 4th century meant the bronzing or tanning of the face and in 13th-century British sources the production of colour.^[2] The Shorter Oxford and Hoad allow a direct borrowing from Late Latin as well.^[7][5] The Latin noun is formed on the past participle stem of colōrō (“to colour; to get tanned”),^[2][3][8] from color (“colour of the skin; colour”).^[3] The OED compares Spanish coloración and Italian colorazione.^[2] The English word is related to colour.^[5][8]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record, in J. Woodall's The Surgions Mate (1617), is an obsolete sense, the restoring of a precious metal's original colour.^[2] The general sense, the natural colouring of a plant or animal, follows in Bacon's Sylva Sylvarum (before 1626, published 1627),^[2] and Merriam-Webster Unabridged dates its first sense to 1626;^[4] Etymonline gives the 1620s.^[3]

Semantic evolution

Bacon's use covered both the natural colouring of living things and the way anything is coloured,^[2] and Johnson (1755), quoting Bacon, defined the word as the art of colouring and the state of being coloured.^[9] Later uses followed the arts and sciences: a change of colour from a chemical or physical cause (1665), the handling of colour in painting (1778) and on the outside of buildings (1861), and the action of colouring something (1837).^[2] A figurative sense, the characteristic tone or character of something abstract, appears in a 1799 translation of Kant,^[2] and the American Heritage Dictionary records it of the beliefs or principles of a person or group.^[10] In the 20th century the word was applied to the distortion of sound by a loudspeaker or microphone (1925).^[2][11] Zoology uses it in terms such as protective coloration and warning coloration.^[7]

Timeline

• 1617 – the restoring of a metal's original colour (obsolete by 1828).^[2]
• before 1626 – the natural colouring of a plant or animal.^[2][4]
• 1626 – the way something is coloured.^[2]
• 1665 – a change of colour from a chemical reaction or physical change.^[2]
• 1778 – the use or effect of colour in painting.^[2]
• 1799 – figurative, characteristic tone or character.^[2]
• 1837 – the action of colouring something.^[2]
• 1861 – decorative colouring on the outside of a building.^[2]
• 1925 – distortion of reproduced sound by a loudspeaker or room.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. The way something is coloured; the arrangement of colours and tones: the pale coloration of the old map.^[11][4][10]
2. The natural colouring or markings of an animal or plant, as in protective coloration.^[11][7][2]
3. The use or handling of colour by an artist.^[4][2]
4. Characteristic quality or tone; the beliefs or principles that mark a person or group: the party's conservative coloration.^[10][2]
5. Unwanted variation in the sound of a loudspeaker or listening room.^[11][2]

Word family

• colorational
• colorationally
• recoloration
• warning coloration

Related words

• colour

Usage notes

British spelling also has colouration.^[11][4][7]

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d e f Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
5. ^ a b c Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b c d Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
9. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
10. ^ a b c The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
11. ^ a b c d e Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins