chroma
Americannoun
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the purity of a color, or its freedom from white or gray.
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intensity of distinctive hue; saturation of a color.
noun
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the attribute of a colour that enables an observer to judge how much chromatic colour it contains irrespective of achromatic colour present See also saturation
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(in colour television) the colour component in a composite coded signal
Etymology
Origin of chroma
First recorded in 1885–90, chroma is from the Greek word chrôma color
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Meanwhile figures such as Albert H. Munsell, a painter-turned-color-theorist, devised systems that mapped color by hue, value and chroma in an effort to translate perception into measurable terms.
From The Wall Street Journal • Mar. 27, 2026
Rawls projects stop-motion videos of still images of Black dancers onto chroma green screens suspended from the ceiling.
From Los Angeles Times • Apr. 2, 2025
But if there’s a little bit more ambient lighting, colors look washed out, or low in chroma.
From Salon • Nov. 16, 2024
First there was Robert Musil the mechanical engineer, who invented a chroma meter, a device for evaluating color.
From New York Times • Dec. 5, 2019
Aim.—To recognize sequences of chroma, as separate from sequences of hue or sequences of value.
From A Color Notation A measured color system, based on the three qualities Hue, Value and Chroma by Munsell, A. H. (Albert Henry)
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
