Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary - color

 I. noun  Usage: often attributive  Etymology: Middle English colour, from Anglo-French, from Latin ~; akin to Latin celare to conceal — more at hell  Date: 13th century  1.  a. a phenomenon of light (as red, brown, pink, or gray) or visual perception that enables one to differentiate otherwise identical objects  b.  (1) the aspect of the appearance of objects and light sources that may be described in terms of hue, lightness, and saturation for objects and hue, brightness, and saturation for light sources the changing ~ of the sky; also a specific combination of hue, saturation, and lightness or brightness comes in six ~s  (2) a ~ other than and as contrasted with black, white, or gray  2.  a. an outward often deceptive show ; appearance his story has the ~ of truth  b. a legal claim to or appearance of a right, authority, or office  c. a pretense offered as justification ; pretext she could have drawn from the Versailles treaty the ~ of legality for any action she chose — Yale Review  d. an appearance of authenticity ; plausibility lending ~ to this notion  3. complexion tint:  a. the tint characteristic of good health  b. blush  4.  a. vividness or variety of effects of language  b. local ~  5.  a. an identifying badge, pennant, or flag — usually used in plural a ship sailing under Swedish ~s  b. ~ed clothing distinguishing one as a member of a particular group or representative of a particular person or thing — usually used in plural a jockey wearing the ~s of the stable  6.  a. plural position as to a question or course of action ; stand the USSR changed neither its ~s nor its stripes during all of this — Norman Mailer  b. character, nature — usually used in plural showed himself in his true ~s  7.  a. the use or combination of ~s  b. two or more hues employed in a medium of presentation movies in ~  8. plural  a. a naval or nautical salute to a flag being hoisted or lowered  b. armed forces  9. vitality, interest the play had a good deal of ~ to it  10. something used to give ~ ; pigment  11. the quality of timbre in music the ~ and richness of the cello  12. skin pigmentation especially other than white characteristic of race a person of ~  13. a small particle of gold in a gold miner's pan after washing  14. analysis of game action or strategy, statistics and background information on participants, and often anecdotes provided by a sportscaster to give variety and interest to the broadcast of a game or contest a ~ commentator  15. a hypothetical property of quarks that differentiates each type into three forms having a distinct role in binding quarks together  II. verb  Date: 14th century  transitive verb  1.  a. to give ~ to  b. to change the ~ of (as by dyeing, staining, or painting)  2. to change as if by dyeing or painting: as  a. misrepresent, distort  b. gloss, excuse ~ a lie  c. influence the lives of most of us have been ~ed by politics — Christine Weston  3. characterize, label call it progress; ~ it inevitable with shades of job security — C. E. Price  intransitive verb to take on ~; specifically blush  • ~er noun