What is the difference between scarlet and crimson?

Two axes, not one

The lexicon places scarlet at hues 25°–38° and crimson at 12°–28°, and gives crimson a lightness range reaching lower (0.38–0.62 against 0.48–0.70). Only 20% of scarlet's sRGB colours are also crimson. The crowd survey adds the depth difference plainly: its crimson has OKLCH lightness 0.40, its scarlet 0.50. But the crowd's scarlet is itself a deep, slightly bluish red, and it falls inside Red, Scarlet, Crimson — it sits on the boundary rather than well inside scarlet. That is the usual pattern: people agree on the direction of the difference far more than on where any one swatch belongs.

Both began as words for dyed cloth

Neither word started as a colour. Scarlet was a costly woollen cloth in medieval French and English, often but not always red; it is recorded as the name of a brilliant red from the late 14th century. Crimson came into English in the early 15th century, via Italian, from Arabic qirmizī — the kermes insect whose dye gave a deep purplish red — and at first also named the dyed cloth. Both were luxury textile words. Crimson's link to an insect dye that gave a purplish red is the likeliest source of its blue lean; the colour words kept their leans after the cloths were forgotten.

Screens make the pair look closer than cloth does

CSS defines crimson (#dc143c) but has no scarlet keyword; the catalogue's scarlet is #ff2400, a bright screen red close to the sRGB red primary. Both sit near the edge of what sRGB can show, with OKLCH chroma above 0.2, and on a wide-gamut phone both can look more intense than on an office monitor. What separates them on screen is hue, and at this saturation a hue difference of ten degrees is easy to see. On fabric and paint, where both are usually deeper than their screen versions, the difference in depth is often what people notice first.

When it matters which one you ask for

Ceremonial and academic dress, sports colours and heraldry often name one of the two, and the institution's own reference, not the word, fixes the shade. For design work, the useful information is the lean: a scarlet brief wants a red that sits comfortably with oranges and warm neutrals; a crimson brief wants one that sits with pinks, purples and cool greys. Under lamps weak in deep red, both dull, and the balance between them can shift with the light, which is why red swatches are worth checking under the light they will be seen in.

The data

What goes wrong, and what to do

What the evidence says

Each statement is labelled by kind — established fact, a standard’s requirement, observed market data, a convention, or Colourwise’s own interpretation or analysis — with the strength of the evidence behind it.

• Colourwise analysisModerate evidence

  The xkcd survey's crimson (#8c000f) has an OKLCH lightness of 0.40 against 0.50 for its scarlet (#be0119), and the two are 9.9 apart in CIEDE2000.

  Based on: OKLCH and CIEDE2000 computed by Colourwise from the published survey values.

  Caveat: One crowd-sourced centre per name, gathered on uncalibrated screens.

  Source: Color survey results, and the rgb.txt list of the 954 most common colour names

• FactModerate evidence

  Scarlet was first the name of a fine cloth, recorded as a colour name from the late 14th century; crimson came into English in the early 15th century from Arabic qirmizī, the kermes dye, via Italian.

  Caveat: Summarised from a compiled etymology reference; dates are first recorded uses.

  Source: Online Etymology Dictionary

• StandardStrong evidence

  CSS Color Level 4 defines crimson as #dc143c and has no scarlet keyword.

  Source: CSS Color Module Level 4

• Colourwise interpretationLimited evidence

  Speakers agree more on the direction of the scarlet–crimson difference (orange-leaning versus blue-leaning, lighter versus deeper) than on where a given swatch belongs.

  Based on: All sources put crimson at a bluer hue and lower lightness, yet the crowd's own scarlet falls inside the crimson region as well.

  Caveat: Drawn from three published centres, not a study of individual naming.

Related questions

Is crimson a shade of purple?

No. Crimson is a red that leans towards blue, which moves it a little towards pink and purple, but its hue range in the lexicon (12°–28°) stays well inside red. Further towards blue it becomes ruby, then magenta.

Where does vermilion fit between scarlet and crimson?

On the scarlet side. Vermilion's region is a bright orange-red almost entirely inside scarlet and red; what sets it apart is its history as a mercury-based pigment rather than a separate colour.

Why does scarlet look more orange on my phone than in the shop?

Wide-gamut phone screens can show a more intense orange-red than most dyed cloth can reach, and an unmanaged app may push the red further. The shop sample is the better guide to the physical colour.

Related topics

Go further

Sources

• Color survey results, and the rgb.txt list of the 954 most common colour names — xkcd (Randall Munroe) (Reference work)
• Online Etymology Dictionary — Douglas Harper (Reference work)
• CSS Color Module Level 4 — W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) (Official standard or government)
• Colourwise editorial synthesis — Colourwise (Colourwise editorial)

Reviewed 29 September 2026. Colourwise summarises its sources in its own words and does not reproduce standards text or proprietary colour data. Spotted an error? Tell us.