Dictionary

colourful en · ADJ

Pronunciation

• (US) audio

Etymology

From colour + -ful.

Meanings

1. British standard spelling of colorful.
   • One of the most colourful people in motor racing, he writes in a colourful manner. 1895, H. Walter Staner, Henry Sturmey, The Autocar:
   • 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. 2002 July 14, “Did Hussain go too far?”, in BBC Sport, archived from the original on 28 Feb 2019:
   • 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. 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, archived from the original on 14 Jan 2025:
   • 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 2012 June 9, Owen Phillips, “Euro 2012: Netherlands 0-1 Denmark”, in BBC Sport, archived from the original on 15 Feb 2022:
   • 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, The Annual of the British School at Athens:

Forms

Deriveds

colourfully · colourfulness · uncolourful