colourless

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English

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English Wikipedia has an article on:
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Alternative forms

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Etymology

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From colour +‎ -less.

Pronunciation

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  • (UK) IPA(key): /ˈkʌlə(ɹ).ləs/
  • Audio (US):(file)

Adjective

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colourless (comparative more colourless, superlative most colourless) (British spelling)

  1. Having little or no colour.
    • 1867, Ivan Sergheïevitch Turgenef [i.e., Ivan Turgenev], chapter I, in Eugene Schuyler, transl., Fathers and Sons [], New York, N.Y.: Leypoldt and Holt, →OCLC, page 1:
      The servant to whom he put this question was a young fellow with chubby cheeks, small, dull eyes, and a round chin, covered with a colorless down.
    • 1891, Thomas Hardy, Tess of the d'Urbervilles, volume 1, London: James R. Osgood, McIlvaine and Co., page 14:
      Behind him the hills are open, the sun blazes down upon fields so large as to give an unenclosed character to the landscape, the lanes are white, the hedges low and plashed, the atmosphere colourless.
    • 1947 January and February, O. S. Nock, “"The Aberdonian" in Wartime”, in Railway Magazine, page 7:
      The wide prospect up stream was grey and lowering, the long still-distant waterfront of Dundee, and the Fife shore were alike colourless, and there was ample evidence of rough weather not far ahead.
  2. (of a liquid) Water white.
  3. Lacking in interest or variety.
  4. (politics) Neutral in opinion or allegiance; centrist
    • 1926, David Joseph Saposs, Left Wing Unionism: A Study of Radical Policies and Tactics, page 73:
      They cannot, of course, assume a colourless position because they cater to the radical rank and file and would be branded renegades.

Synonyms

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Derived terms

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Translations

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See also

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