36 colour-terminology terms, each defined once and linked to from tools, colour profiles, history and practical guidance rather than re-explained per page.
Hue
The base colour itself — red, blue, green, yellow and so on — independent of how light, dark or saturated it is.
Shade
A hue with black added — a darker version of the same colour.
Tint
A hue with white added — a lighter, softer version of the same colour.
Tone
A hue with grey added — a more muted, softer version of the same colour.
Saturation
How intense or how 'washed out' a colour looks — high saturation is vivid, low saturation is closer to grey.
Chroma
Similar to saturation — how far a colour is from neutral grey — but measured in a way that stays consistent across different lightness levels.
Value
How light or dark a colour is, on a scale from black to white, independent of hue.
Brightness
An everyday word for how light-emitting or luminous a colour looks — often used loosely for both value and lightness.
Lightness
How close a colour is to white or black.
Undertone
A subtle warm or cool bias within a colour that otherwise reads as fairly neutral — a 'warm white' vs a 'cool white', for example.
Warm colour
A colour with a red, orange or yellow bias — associated with heat, sunlight and cosiness.
Cool colour
A colour with a green, blue or purple bias — associated with calm, shade and freshness.
Neutral colour
A colour with very little hue strength — greys, off-whites, beiges and similar low-saturation colours.
Pastel
A soft, pale colour that still has a hint of colour rather than reading as pure white.
Muted colour
A colour that has been softened toward grey — less intense than its purest, most vivid version.
Vivid colour
A strongly saturated, intense colour — the opposite of muted.
Complementary colours
Two colours from opposite sides of the colour wheel — a classic high-contrast pairing.
Analogous colours
Colours that sit next to each other on the colour wheel — a harmonious, low-contrast pairing.
Triadic colours
Three colours spaced evenly around the colour wheel.
Split-complementary colours
A base colour plus the two colours next to its complementary opposite, rather than the exact opposite itself.
Colour temperature
A measure of how warm (yellow/orange) or cool (blue-white) a light source looks, usually given in Kelvin.
CRI (Colour Rendering Index)
A score (0–100) for how accurately a light source shows colours compared with natural daylight.
Metamerism
When two colours look like a matching pair under one light source but noticeably different under another.
Pigment
A finely ground, insoluble colouring material mixed into paint, ink or other media.
Dye
A soluble colouring material that chemically bonds with or is absorbed into the material it colours, such as fabric.
Structural colour
Colour produced by microscopic physical structures scattering or reflecting light, rather than by pigment.
Additive colour
Mixing coloured light, where combining colours moves toward white — how screens work.
Subtractive colour
Mixing pigments or inks, where combining colours moves toward black — how paint and print work.
Opacity
How much a material blocks light from passing through — fully opaque means no light gets through at all.
Translucency
Letting some light through while still scattering it, so objects behind aren't clearly visible — frosted glass is translucent, not transparent.
Iridescence
A shifting, rainbow-like colour effect that changes depending on the viewing angle.