COLOURS

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does colours mean? 

• COLOURS (noun)
  The noun COLOURS has 2 senses:

1. a distinguishing emblem

2. a flag that shows its nationality

  Familiarity information: COLOURS used as a noun is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• COLOURS (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A distinguishing emblem

Classified under:

Nouns denoting man-made objects

Synonyms:

colors; colours

Context example:

his tie proclaimed his school colors

Hypernyms ("colours" is a kind of...):

emblem (special design or visual object representing a quality, type, group, etc.)

Domain usage:

plural; plural form (the form of a word that is used to denote more than one)

Sense 2

Meaning:

A flag that shows its nationality

Classified under:

Nouns denoting man-made objects

Synonyms:

colors; colours

Hypernyms ("colours" is a kind of...):

flag (emblem usually consisting of a rectangular piece of cloth of distinctive design)

Domain usage:

plural; plural form (the form of a word that is used to denote more than one)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "colours"):

ensign (colors flown by a ship to show its nationality)

 Context examples 

“But I don’t see him. My colours have not passed.”

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

Then, climbing on the roof, he had with his own hand bent and run up the colours.

(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

With our device, every pixel contains data points from across the visible spectrum, so we can acquire detailed information far beyond the colours which our eyes can perceive.

(Nanowires replace Newton’s famous glass prism, University of Cambridge)

He pointed out to me the shifting colours of the landscape and the appearances of the sky.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

The hair of both sexes was of several colours, brown, red, black, and yellow.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

Social interactions within a predator species can have “evolutionary consequences” for potential prey – such as the conspicuous warning colours of insects like ladybirds.

(Birds learn from each other’s ‘disgust’, enabling insects to evolve bright colours, University of Cambridge)

A team led by ESO astronomer Giacomo Beccari has used these data of unparallelled quality to precisely measure the brightness and colours of all the stars in the Orion Nebula Cluster.

(A Tale of Three Stellar Cities, ESO)

The evening sun shone upon the brilliant stones; they glittered and sparkled with all colours so beautifully that the children stood still and stared at them.

(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)

Miniatures, half-lengths, whole-lengths, pencil, crayon, and water-colours had been all tried in turn.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

New thoughts and hopes were whirling through my mind, and all the colours of my life were changing.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)