Put a Little Color In Your Life

This is a short list of the most commonly used colors in Greek.

Colors

red		*kOk'inos*
green		*prAsinos*
blue		*blE*
cyan		*ghalAzgh'os*
yellow		*k'Itrinos*
brown		*kaphE*
pink		*rOz*
gray		*grIzos*
orange		*portokalIs*
purple		*mObh*
white		*Aspros*
black		*mAbhros*

• All the color names are adjectives, but sometimes may be used as nouns as well.
  = the red house (adjective)
  = (slang) heroin !! (noun)
  = the black man (noun)
  The latter (noun) case (as one would expect) is not encountered very often and used only in everyday speech. Whenever an adjective is used as a noun, the noun is implied. Thus, in our examples, " " (="the white powder") and " " (="the black man") is implied.
• The color adjectives on the above list appear in the Nominative Case of their masculine form. The feminine and neuter adjectives are formed by changing the ending. Thus,
  (masc), (fem), (neut)
  (masc), (fem), (neut)
  and so on.
• The words "", "", "" and "" are of foreign origin (" comes from the word for "coffee" and the others come from the French words "bleu", "rosé" and "mauve" respectively) and are therefore not conjugated neither do they have different forms for the feminine and neuter.
• The words "" and "" form the feminine adjective differently, thus we say
  (masc), (fem), (neut)
  (masc), (fem), (neut)
• "" comes from the Greek word for orange (""), just like in English.
• Finally, let us note that there also exist archaic words for some of the colors, that are sometimes used in some expressions (such as "" = "ultraviolet").

Colors of the Ancient Greeks

red		*erithrOs*
green		*khlorOs*
blue		*kianOs*
purple		*iOdhis*
white		*lephkOs*
black		*mElas*

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