colourful

English

Etymology

From colour +‎ -ful.

Pronunciation

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Adjective

colourful (comparative more colourful, superlative most colourful)

  1. British standard spelling of colorful.
    • 1895, The Annual of the British School at Athens:
      It was a colourful vase with red and white hoops on the lid, and red bands above and below the main frieze. These bands also carry a metope pattern in white of triple lines and blobs, which can just be distinguished on the photographs.
    • 1895, H. Walter Staner, Henry Sturmey, The Autocar:
      One of the most colourful people in motor racing, he writes in a colourful manner.
    • 2002 July 14, “Did Hussain go too far?”, in BBC Sport[1], archived from the original on 28 February 2019:
      Hussain celebrated reaching his ton with a gesture towards the media centre, pointing to the number three on the back of his shirt and offering some colourful language.
    • 2012 June 9, Owen Phillips, “Euro 2012: Netherlands 0-1 Denmark”, in BBC Sport[2]:
      And Netherlands, backed by a typically noisy and colourful travelling support, started the second period in blistering fashion and could have had four goals within 10 minutes
    • 2024 September 21, Eve Livingston, “‘Students want to stay here now rather than disappear to London’: how design transformed the city of Dundee”, in The Guardian[3]:
      In the factory, a colourful woodland of knitted trees points towards a collection of bookends commissioned from Scottish designers and inspired by the globetrotting travels in 1894 of Dundee Courier journalists Marie Imandt and Bessie Maxwell.

Derived terms