Template:table:colors/la

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This table as of November 7, 2025 includes, or is meant to include, color terms from all authors and attestations through Vergil, but not after Vergil. It is thus limited to Classical and Old Latin and does not fully capture Augustan Latin terms, because there is an excrescent multitude of them by that time.

If you want to include Medieval or New Latin color terms, they belong to their own color system or multiple systems, and should go into separate tables.

Material color terms, e.g. "aureus", "roseus", "herbeus", "niveus", "lūteus" are included if they have at least one fully metaphorical attestation. Fashion-specific or dye-specific color terms are not included if they have no attestations beside meaning literally "dyed with this pigment" ("ostrīnus", "coccineus" are only attested as meaning literally dyed with snail-dye and kermes, so they are not included). Similarly "igneus" is not attested as a fully metaphorical color term through Vergil, so it is not included. Attestations arguably metaphorical but exclusively attested through the word "color", like "igneus color", instead of directly describing the thing, are not included. "Flammeus" is included because it does have a direct fully metaphorical color attestation.

The Romans did not consistently separate red from orange, orange from yellow, and even yellow from green (and yellow from pink). In the table under "yellow" are included colors which either tend to cross over into "green", or are specifically used by the Romans to mean something less red than red hair. Colors (or rather their materials) that are by the Romans often described with orangey and red color terms, e.g. "fulvum aurum", "rutilum aurum", and don't refer to pallor, are not included under yellow, thus "aureus" has been slotted under orange. However, this may be a difficult choice. Dividing the colors between red and orange categories is particularly difficult, and the red-orange part of the table may currently be in part arbitrary. Currently the "red" colors are especially uncertain.

The Romans promiscuously used dark blue colors for blackness and darkness. However, they also had color terms for blackness and darkness that had no particular color hue associations. Blue and black in this table are divided on the basis of either having blue associations or having no particular hue associations.

In Roman terms grayness was often expressed with e.g. dimness or impressionistically neighboring terms, somewhat conflated with uncolorful brownness and other unspecific colorlessness, or was not spoken of. "Pullus" is slotted in the gray category as it centers on something meaningfully lighter than black, has no colorful hue associations and it is known to describe Campanian volcanic soil ("pulla", but obviously also known as "nigra"), and is not in the red-orange-yellow category. "Fuscus" has an affinity to solid blackness, has been seen to describe a crow, and is slotted under black. "Cānus" is one of the most prolific terms for describing pure white and all kinds of white things, and white is its proper grouping.

Rose, purple, violet category is on purpose abstract and minimal. It is difficult to define "purpureus" accurately, but its underlying distinguishing hue was indeed purple. It was noted by the ancients that Tyrian purple came to life when it met light, but was dead when it was folded. In addition, "violāceus" and "roseus" are known descriptive words for the deep color of various Tyrian purples.

From Old Latin through Vergil, and through Augustan Latin after Vergil, no dedicated word for a color like turquoise obtained in general language. Vitruvius called the color of chrysocolla pigment "viridissimus", Pliny the Elder circumlocuted the color of Egyptian turquoise ("callais") with the words "sappīrum imitātur candidior et lītorōsō marī similis", and Pliny the Younger described the color of a sulfur lake as "caerulō albidior, viridior et pressior". These reveal a lack of a proper word. Accordingly, the cyan category is probably useless to try to fill in, and it is tentatively left blank, since no word from Old Latin through Vergil centers on it, with even "glaucus" being an edge case. Incidentally cyaneus in Latin is not cyan, but deep blue, a poetic and Greeky synonym of caeruleus that is attested later than Vergil. In principle, callainus is a word with limited attestation that means turquoise, but its metaphorical use (which chiefly concerns fashion) together with its material attestation both postdate Vergil, and it is excluded from this table with the rest of the excrescent multitude of mature Augustan color terms.

Obvious derivatives that slightly modify the meaning (which is not even always in terms of color) are not included, e.g. "albēscēns", "albēns", "albidus", "subalbus", "subalbidus", "subalbēscēns", "subalbēns", and only the base term is included, which for these examples is "albus". Similarly "incānus" is not featured when there is "cānus".

True "rubeus" with a short ru is most probably a color term that appears in the Empire, and is distinct from Varro's rather specific "robeus", which is probably "rōbeus" and same as "rōbus" from the table. Compare robigo being changed into rubigo. For this reason "rubeus" is not included.

Colors in Latin · colōrēs (layout · text)
albus, candidus, cānus, marmoreus (poetic), eburneus (poetic), niveus (poetic), argenteus (poetic), lacteus (poetic)	rāvus, pullus, mūrīnus (of livestock)	niger, āter, furvus, fuscus ("swarthy"), piceus (poetic)
ruber, russus, rūbidus (dark), flammeus (poetic); rutilus, pūniceus, spādīx (poetic), sanguineus (poetic)	rūfus, rutilus, rōbus (of oxen), croceus (poetic), aureus (poetic); fulvus (poetic), niger (of eyes), badius (of horses)	lūteus, flāvus ("blond"), lūridus, gilvus (of horses), helvus (of cattle); cēreus (poetic)
viridis, flāvus (poetic)	viridis, herbeus (of eyes), fulvus (poetic)	viridis, glaucus (poetic), caeruleus (poetic, only dark)
	glaucus (poetic), caeruleus, caesius (of eyes)	caeruleus, līvidus, ferrūgineus (poetic), glaucus (poetic)
violāceus	purpureus (underlying shade)	roseus

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This template is a table cross-linking terms in Latin. Use this template in the "See also" section of all the members of this table, and the title entry as well: