This post covers how to say and pronounce the different colors in Latin.
Learning the colors is super important as it allows you to accurately describe things.
It’s also interesting to see where colors in our own languages originated from.
So what are the colors in Latin?
Colors In Latin
The main colors in Latin are:
- Red – Ruber
- Dark red – Cruentus
- Blue – Caeruleus
- Green – Viridis
- Yellow – Flavus
- Dark yellow/brown – Fulvus
- Shiny black – Niger ​
- Dull black – Ater
- Shiny white – Candidus
- Dull white – Albus
- Light gray – Canus
- Dark gray – Pullus
- Yellow/orange – Luteus
- Reddish-yellow – Rutilus
- Orange – Croceus
- Purple – Purpureus
- Blueish-gray – Lividus
- Gold – Aureus
- Silver – Argenteus
- Colors – Colores
- Rainbow – Iris
The Romans didn’t distinguish the colors in the same way we do now which means that some English color words do not have an exact Latin equivalent.
For example, they have a word for some colors that we wouldn’t.
An example of this is rutilus which is a reddish-yellow color, similar to the color of a fox.Â
They also didn’t have an exact word for some colors like pink and brown. It’s likely they saw pink as a shade of red and brown as a shade of yellow.
The Romans also distinguished between two types of black and white – a shiny version and a dull version.
The learn more about the colors in Latin, check out the video below which covers them in more detail:
Favorite Colors
To say what your favorite color is, you can say:
- My favorite color is … – ​​Meus color amatissimus est…
For example:
- My favorite color is blue – Meus color amatissimus est caeruleus
Thanks for reading this post which covers the Latin words for colors.
Knowing how to say the different colors in Latin is super important as it helps to accurately describe things.
Learn more about the Latin language here.
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