colore

Forms

colore m (plural colori)^[1] Old forms include Old Italian color, Old Italian collore, Old Italian cholore and Old Italian culore.^[2] A few early texts make the word feminine, which the LEI takes for an imitation of French, where the feminine is much older.^[3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin color (“colour, complexion”), from the accusative “colōrem”.^[4][5][1] DELI calls it a learned word, but the LEI treats it as inherited, since the noun lives on in every Romance language except Romanian, which probably took it from French.^[6][3] The same word is French couleur, Catalan color, Spanish color, Portuguese cor, Friulian colôr, Dalmatian koláwr and Sardinian kolóre.^[4][3]

The early nominative was Latin colōs, as in Plautus.^[7][1] The ending -or came in by analogy with the other cases, where an old /s/ between vowels had become /r/.^[1] De Vaan traces the noun to Proto-Italic *kelōs (“outside, aspect”) and Proto-Indo-European *ḱel-ōs (“cover, covering”), from the root Proto-Indo-European *ḱel- (“to hide, conceal”).^[8][1] The Latin word thus belongs with cēlō (“to hide”): colour was seen as what covers and conceals a thing, and Nocentini thinks of the camouflage it gives.^[6][4][9] De Vaan and the OLD compare Old High German hulsa (“husk, shell”).^[8][7]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLIO's first record is in the Venetian Proverbia que dicuntur, from the last quarter of the 12th century.^[2] GRADIT dates the word before 1237, and DELI's first dated record of the sense “colour”, the impression that reflected light makes on the eye, is in Restoro d'Arezzo's treatise of 1282.^[5][6]

Semantic evolution

Old Italian already used the word for a pigment or dye, for the colour of the face as a sign of health or feeling, and for the rouge of cosmetics.^[2] Following the Latin of the rhetoricians, colore was also a figure of speech that adorns a text, and then an appearance put on, a pretext or a false reason.^[2][10]

The sense of a political leaning or opinion is recorded in the Sforza documents of 1477–1478.^[6] DEI sees French influence in it, as in “the colour of a newspaper”.^[11] The phrase di colore for a person who is not white is a calque of English coloured person, which reached Italian through the French de couleur of a translated Walter Scott novel.^[6][11] Colore locale is the French painters' couleur locale, which Italian took over in the 18th century and which the Romantics turned into a literary term;^[6] Berchet tried tinte locali, and in the 1860s D'Azeglio still wrote the French phrase.^[6]

French borrowed the derivative colorito as coloris (1615).^[11]

Timeline

• Late 12th century – Colore appears in the Venetian Proverbia que dicuntur.^[2]
• Before 1237 – GRADIT's date for the word.^[5]
• 1282 – Restoro d'Arezzo uses it for the colour of things.^[6]
• 1304–1307 – Dante uses it in the Convivio.^[3]
• 1477–1478 – The sense “political leaning” is recorded.^[6]
• 1615 – French coloris is borrowed from colorito.^[11]
• 1758 – A translation from French explains colori locali as a term of painting.^[6]
• 1863–1866 – D'Azeglio still writes couleur locale in French.^[6]

Meanings

Noun

1. colour, the quality of a surface that reflects light in different ways and so gives a particular sensation to the eye: Il cielo aveva un colore grigio.^[5][12][13]
2. (colloquial) A colour other than black and white: una camicia di colore.^[5][14]
3. paint, a pigment or dye used for colouring: colori a olio.^[5][13][15]
4. The complexion of the face, especially as a sign of health or feeling.^[5][13]
5. (figurative) Appearance, character, tone: una storia dal colore di favola.^[5][13]
6. Usually in the plural, the colours of a flag or coat of arms, standing for a state, party or team.^[5][13]
7. (card games) A suit of French playing cards, and in poker a flush.^[13][1]

Word family

• coloramento
• colorante
• colorare
• colorazione
• coloreria
• colorificio
• colorimetro
• colorire
• colorismo
• colorista
• coloristico
• colorito
• coloritore
• coloritura
• trascolorare
• decolorare
• scolorire
• scolorito

Related words

• anticolore
• incolore
• multicolore
• celare
• Latin color
• French couleur

Usage notes

Set phrases include a colori (in colour, not black and white), di colore (not white, of a person), colore locale and dirne di tutti i colori, to pour out every kind of insult.^[5][16][14] DEI lists a minor colore, a Tuscan name of a grape that gives the wine its colour.^[11]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Tesoro della Lingua Italiana delle Origini (1997–), Opera del Vocabolario Italiano, CNR, Firenze; tlio.ovi.cnr.it
3. ^ a b c d Pfister, Max; Schweickard, Wolfgang; Prifti, Elton (eds.) (1979–), Lessico Etimologico Italiano, Wiesbaden: Reichert; online at lei-digitale.it, p. 15, 1000
4. ^ a b c Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
7. ^ a b Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ a b de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
9. ^ Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier
10. ^ Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca
11. ^ a b c d e Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 1020
12. ^ Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
13. ^ a b c d e f Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
14. ^ a b Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
15. ^ Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli
16. ^ Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli