Colour or color: which is correct?
Correct
colour (UK) / color (US)
Avoid
color (in UK English)
Avoid
colour (in US English)
Summary
Correct: colour (UK) / color (US) — Avoid: color (in UK English) / colour (in US English). Colour / color = the property of reflecting light of a particular wavelength; red, blue, green and so on. Both spellings are correct in their own variety.
Both spellings are correct in their own variety; pick one and use it consistently.
- Part of speech
- noun / verb
- Source
- Oxford / Merriam-Webster
Why
Oxford gives colour, honour, flavour and neighbour as the British standard; Merriam-Webster records the -or spellings that Noah Webster promoted in his 1828 dictionary as the American standard. Choose one variety and keep it consistent throughout a document.
Examples
- What colour (UK) / color (US) is the new logo?
- The walls were painted a warm colour.
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Native spelling engine
- Checked against
- Merriam-Webster / Oxford
- Spelling authority
- Merriam-Webster · Oxford English Dictionary / Oxford spelling · SCOWL
- Commonly confused and non-standard forms
- 64
- Dictionary
- Hunspell en_US / en_GB / en_AU / en_CA · Dictionary license: MIT AND BSD (SCOWL combined licence)