colorful

[kuhl-er-fuhl]

adjective

1. abounding in color.

   In their tartans, the Scots guard made a colorful array.

2. richly eventful or picturesque.

   a colorful historical period.

3. presenting or suggesting vivid or striking scenes.

   a colorful narrative.

   Synonyms: dynamic, spirited, vigorous

Other Word Forms

• colorfully adverb
• colorfulness noun
• uncolorful adjective

Word History and Origins

Origin of colorful¹

First recorded in 1885–90; color + -ful

Example Sentences

It has collected its fair share of colorful tales over the course of six decades in business.

Read more on Los Angeles Times

The living room’s fireplace is gone, but the wooden mantle remains atop a console behind the sofa, graced with a series of colorful ceramic planters by Ashley Campbell and Brian Porray of Happy Hour Ceramics.

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Oregon officials have pushed back forcefully, flooding their own social media with images of colorful cafe tables, sun-drenched farmers markets, rose gardens in full bloom and parks bursting with children, families and frolicking dogs.

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The colorful space, dominated by a giant rooster mural and pulsing with salsa, draws inspiration from across Latin America and the Caribbean.

Read more on Salon

But it’s also full of colorful songwriting, of Shires doing tarot with a mermaid, wandering New York listening to Billy Joel or catching her now-former partner behaving nonchalantly on a home security camera.

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Related Words

• bright 
• flashy 
• gaudy 
• hued 
• multicolored 
• rich 
• splashy 
• vibrant 
• vivid 

When To Use

What does colorful mean?

Colorful literally means full of color, especially a lot of different bright colors.It can also be used in a figurative way to mean rich with interesting or vividly depicted elements, such as characters or events.For example, a colorful story is one with a lot of interesting parts, locations, and especially colorful characters—people with unique (or eccentric) personalities and ways of life.A place like a restaurant or nightclub might be said to have a colorful history, meaning a lot of very interesting or unusual things have happened there.The phrase colorful language is a euphemism—it’s a polite way of referring to language that contains a lot of curse words, obscenities, or other potentially offensive terms. Colorful is sometimes used in this way in other situations as a euphemistic or humorous way of implying that something is a bit seedy, shady, or outside the mainstream, as in That place is known to have a colorful clientele, if you know what I mean—a lot of shady deals go down there. Example: The history of the museum is as colorful as the paintings that hang on its walls—it has seen some truly bizarre happenings over the years.