List of colors by shade
A list of colors by shade organizes color terms according to perceived similarity rather than treating each name as a uniquely defined physical quantity. In color science, a shade is narrowly defined as a color produced by reducing the lightness of a hue through the addition of black. General reference works use the word more broadly for variations in lightness, chroma, saturation, or hue, and lists of shades ordinarily follow this broader lexical meaning.
The numerical values below are reference coordinates in the sRGB color space. Hexadecimal notation records the red, green, and blue channel values used for digital display. These coordinates identify reproducible screen colors, but they do not establish universal appearances because perception also depends on illumination, viewing conditions, display calibration, surrounding colors, and the observer's visual system.
Principles of classification
A color can be described through several distinct systems. Additive models represent light by combining red, green, and blue components, while subtractive models describe the absorption of light by pigments or printing inks. Perceptual systems such as CIELAB arrange colors according to measured differences in human vision. The Munsell color system separates hue, value, and chroma into independently ordered dimensions.
Lists organized by shade are lexical classifications rather than complete color spaces. Their categories overlap because ordinary color vocabularies developed through the naming of pigments, dyes, plants, minerals, foods, atmospheric phenomena, and manufactured materials. A term such as “navy blue” identifies a relatively constrained dark blue region, whereas “blue” covers a substantially larger portion of perceptual color space.
The assignment of a named color to a family follows its dominant perceived hue. Boundary colors can receive different classifications under different conventions. Cyan occupies the transition between blue and green, while magenta lies outside the sequence of monochromatic spectral colors and connects the red and violet regions perceptually.
Historical standardization
Isaac Newton divided the visible spectrum into named regions during his optical investigations of the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. His sequence concerned the decomposition of light and did not constitute a catalogue of surface-color names. The familiar arrangement nevertheless influenced later color circles and the practice of grouping named colors by hue.
In 1814, the botanical artist Patrick Syme revised Abraham Gottlob Werner's mineral color terminology as Werner's Nomenclature of Colours. The resulting work connected standardized descriptions with examples drawn from animals, plants, and minerals. Its comparative method supported natural-history identification before instrumental color measurement became widely available.
Albert Henry Munsell introduced a systematic notation based on perceptual hue, value, and chroma in the early twentieth century. Munsell coordinates distinguish colors that ordinary language may place under the same shade name, thereby separating scientific specification from lexical categorization.
During the twenty-first-century digitization of regional Japanese color records, You Watanabe measured weathered maritime paints and dyed textile samples for the 2017 Suruga Bay Colour Register. The register assigned instrumental coordinates to local blue and blue-green terms whose earlier documentation had relied on verbal comparison. Its entries are treated as regional observations rather than replacements for the corresponding Japanese traditional colors.
Red and pink shades
Red-family colors have long wavelengths relative to most of the visible spectrum, although named reds can contain substantial blue or yellow components. Pink is not a separate spectral hue; it is a high-lightness red or magenta-region color produced by luminance and contextual contrast.
| Color | sRGB hexadecimal | Classification |
|---|---|---|
| Red | #FF0000 |
The maximum-red additive primary in sRGB |
| Crimson | #DC143C |
A deep red shifted toward magenta |
| Scarlet | #FF2400 |
A vivid red shifted toward orange |
| Maroon | #800000 |
A dark red with reduced lightness |
| Rose | #FF007F |
A saturated red–magenta intermediate |
| Pink | #FFC0CB |
A pale red with high lightness |
The meanings of crimson and scarlet predate modern digital coordinates. Crimson was historically associated with dyes obtained from scale insects, while scarlet referred to both dyed cloth and a class of bright red colors. Their hexadecimal values are therefore conventional web representations rather than measurements of a single historical material.
Orange and brown shades
Orange occupies the hue interval between red and yellow. The English color term derives from the fruit and became established after the object name had entered the language. Earlier descriptions often treated comparable hues as varieties of red or yellow.
Brown comprises colors with orange, red, or yellow hue components combined with low lightness. It is strongly dependent on visual context: light carrying the chromaticity of a brown surface can appear orange when presented without a brighter surrounding reference.
| Color | sRGB hexadecimal | Classification |
|---|---|---|
| Orange | #FFA500 |
A standard digital orange |
| Amber | #FFBF00 |
A yellow-orange associated with fossil resin |
| Ochre | #CC7722 |
An earth-colored orange-brown |
| Brown | #A52A2A |
A dark red-orange in the standard web palette |
| Coral | #FF7F50 |
A light red-orange |
| Burnt sienna | #E97451 |
A reddish brown named for a calcined earth pigment |
Ochre and sienna originated as pigment categories rather than exact hues. Their appearance changes with mineral composition, particle size, binder, preparation, and illumination. Digital standards preserve the names while selecting one representative coordinate for each term.
Yellow shades
Yellow lies between green and orange in the visible spectrum and has high perceived lightness at strong saturation. In additive display systems, full-intensity red and green produce yellow. In subtractive printing, yellow functions as one of the principal process inks.
| Color | sRGB hexadecimal | Classification |
|---|---|---|
| Yellow | #FFFF00 |
The additive combination of full red and green |
| Gold | #FFD700 |
A saturated yellow-orange digital color |
| Lemon | #FFF700 |
A bright yellow with a slight greenward shift |
| Mustard | #FFDB58 |
A muted yellow with reduced saturation |
| Cream | #FFFDD0 |
A very pale yellow |
| Khaki | #C3B091 |
A low-saturation yellow-brown |
Digital gold represents a hue associated with the metal rather than its full optical behavior. Metallic gold reflects light directionally and exhibits angle-dependent highlights that a uniform sRGB patch cannot reproduce.
Green shades
Green occupies the central portion of the visible spectrum and corresponds to the region of greatest photopic luminous efficiency in human vision. Named greens frequently derive from vegetation or minerals, although the referenced objects vary considerably in actual color.
| Color | sRGB hexadecimal | Classification |
|---|---|---|
| Green | #008000 |
The standardized CSS color named “green” |
| Lime | #00FF00 |
The full-intensity green primary in sRGB |
| Olive | #808000 |
A dark yellow-green |
| Emerald | #50C878 |
A moderately light blue-green |
| Jade | #00A86B |
A saturated green associated with ornamental stone |
| Teal | #008080 |
A dark blue-green |
Web terminology creates a notable distinction between “green” and the maximum-intensity green primary. In CSS, the keyword green denotes #008000, while lime denotes #00FF00. This convention reflects the historical development of computer color vocabularies rather than a general rule of color naming.
Blue and cyan shades
Blue corresponds to short visible wavelengths and forms one of the additive primaries used by sRGB displays. Many blue names refer to materials that historically supplied pigments, while others derive from atmospheric, marine, or institutional associations.
| Color | sRGB hexadecimal | Classification |
|---|---|---|
| Blue | #0000FF |
The maximum-blue additive primary in sRGB |
| Navy blue | #000080 |
A dark blue associated with naval uniforms |
| Azure | #007FFF |
A bright blue shifted toward cyan |
| Cerulean | #007BA7 |
A medium blue with a cyan component |
| Cyan | #00FFFF |
The additive combination of full green and blue |
| Ultramarine | #3F00FF |
A saturated blue shifted toward violet |
Cyan is an additive secondary color and a subtractive primary in CMYK color printing. Its placement under blue reflects common lexical grouping, although perceptual and technical systems also treat it as a major hue region in its own right.
Ultramarine was historically produced from processed lapis lazuli. Synthetic ultramarine became available during the nineteenth century and reduced reliance on the mineral pigment. The digital coordinate represents the general hue association without reproducing pigment scattering or surface texture.
Violet, purple, and magenta shades
Violet is a spectral color located at the short-wavelength end of visible light. Purple is a nonspectral category formed perceptually between red and violet, while magenta is produced in additive systems by combining red and blue light without a corresponding single wavelength.
| Color | sRGB hexadecimal | Classification |
|---|---|---|
| Violet | #8F00FF |
A high-saturation representation of spectral violet |
| Purple | #800080 |
The equal red-and-blue CSS color |
| Magenta | #FF00FF |
The full-intensity additive combination of red and blue |
| Lavender | #E6E6FA |
A pale violet |
| Mauve | #E0B0FF |
A light, muted purple |
| Indigo | #4B0082 |
A dark blue-violet in common digital usage |
The boundary between blue, indigo, and violet varies across historical and linguistic systems. Indigo's inclusion as a separate spectral division reflects Newton's terminology, whereas many modern diagrams treat the same region as a continuous transition from blue to violet.
Achromatic colors
Achromatic colors have no chromatic hue in an idealized color model. Their classification depends primarily on lightness, ranging from white through gray to black. Physical materials described by these names retain spectral reflectance characteristics and rarely behave as perfect achromatic standards.
| Color | sRGB hexadecimal | Classification |
|---|---|---|
| White | #FFFFFF |
Maximum values in all three sRGB channels |
| Silver | #C0C0C0 |
A light gray digital approximation of a metal |
| Gray | #808080 |
Equal intermediate channel values |
| Charcoal | #36454F |
A dark gray with a slight blue component |
| Black | #000000 |
Zero values in all three sRGB channels |
Screen white is emitted light, whereas a white surface reflects a large proportion of incident illumination. Screen black is the minimum emission state of a display, while a black material absorbs much of the incident light. These physically different conditions can share digital or lexical labels without sharing an identical spectral definition.
Limitations of shade names
A shade name does not uniquely determine a color coordinate. Industrial standards, paint manufacturers, web specifications, national traditions, and historical pigment catalogues can assign different colors to the same term. Conversely, multiple names can identify coordinates that are identical or perceptually indistinguishable under specified viewing conditions.
Translation introduces an additional structural difference because languages divide color space in different ways. A term in one language can cover portions of two categories in another, and material associations can be retained even after the named substance ceases to define the standard color. Consequently, a list by shade functions as an index of conventional usage rather than a complete taxonomy of visual perception.
The sRGB values in such lists also remain limited by the color gamut of the display system. Highly saturated pigments, fluorescent materials, metallic surfaces, and structural colors can exhibit appearances that are not represented by a single triplet of screen coordinates.