COLOURLESS

Pronunciation (US):

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does colourless mean? 

• COLOURLESS (adjective)
  The adjective COLOURLESS has 2 senses:

1. lacking in variety and interest

2. weak in color; not colorful

  Familiarity information: COLOURLESS used as an adjective is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• COLOURLESS (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Lacking in variety and interest

Synonyms:

colorless; colourless

Context example:

a colorless description of the parade

Similar:

neutral (lacking distinguishing quality or characteristics)

pale; pallid (lacking in vitality or interest or effectiveness)

Also:

dull (lacking in liveliness or animation)

Antonym:

colourful (striking in variety and interest)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Weak in color; not colorful

Synonyms:

colorless; colourless

Similar:

ashen; blanched; bloodless; livid; white (anemic looking from illness or emotion)

bleached; faded; washed-out; washy (having lost freshness or brilliance of color)

drab; sober; somber; sombre (lacking brightness or color; dull)

dulled; greyed (deprived of color)

blanched; etiolate; etiolated ((especially of plants) developed without chlorophyll by being deprived of light)

lurid (ghastly pale)

pale; pallid; wan (abnormally deficient in color as suggesting physical or emotional distress)

pastelike; pasty (resembling paste in color; pallid)

prefaded ((of fabric or clothing) having been given a faded (weathered) appearance by artificial means)

waxen; waxlike; waxy (having the paleness of wax)

white; whitened ((of hair) having lost its color)

Also:

achromatic; neutral (having no hue)

Attribute:

color; colour; vividness (interest and variety and intensity)

Derivation:

colourlessness (the visual property of being without chromatic color)

 Context examples 

The sensor paper they created features a special ink, containing phosphomolybdic acid (PMA), which turns from colourless to blue when exposed to UV radiation.

(New wristband provides personalised and real-time tracking of UV exposure, University of Granada)

If you can conceive me as a thin and colourless cord upon which my would-be pearls are strung, you will be accepting me upon the terms which I should wish.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Mrs. Rucastle seemed to me to be colourless in mind as well as in feature.

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

I thought her, then, still more colourless and thin than when I had seen her last; the flashing eyes still brighter, and the scar still plainer.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

This I felt sure was Eliza, though I could trace little resemblance to her former self in that elongated and colourless visage.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

I had often heard of the beauty of the youngest daughter of the Duke of Belminster, but no description of it, and no contemplation of colourless photographs, had prepared me for the subtle, delicate charm and the beautiful colouring of that exquisite head.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

His eyes were large and blue, with brown lashes; his high forehead, colourless as ivory, was partially streaked over by careless locks of fair hair.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

His whole face was colourless rock: his eye was both spark and flint.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

My master's colourless, olive face, square, massive brow, broad and jetty eyebrows, deep eyes, strong features, firm, grim mouth,—all energy, decision, will,—were not beautiful, according to rule; but they were more than beautiful to me; they were full of an interest, an influence that quite mastered me,—that took my feelings from my own power and fettered them in his.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)