colorful
AmericanUsage
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.
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of colorful
Explanation
Things that are colorful are brightly colored or have many different colors. A brilliant red cardinal is a colorful bird, while a brown sparrow isn't quite as colorful. Some nutrition experts recommend eating a colorful diet, including vegetables and fruits of varied colors for optimum health. A colorful bouquet of flowers would be equally varied, perhaps with white daisies, pink roses, blue violets, and yellow carnations. Brilliantly colored things are colorful too, like a tree with orange leaves in the fall. Figuratively, colorful language is rude or coarse, and a colorful group of friends is interesting and varied.
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.
The show also includes examples from his mid-1980s shift toward more colorful hues, calligraphy-like glyphs and looping lines that collectively confirmed him as one of the most influential abstract painters of the 20th century.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 15, 2026
A colorful pair of neatly pleated Issey Miyake pants.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 11, 2026
Some self-care advice: Finch, a popular wellness and habit-tracking app, promises to help users achieve their self-care goals with the assistance of a colorful cartoon bird.
From Slate ● Sep. 9, 2026
The 43-square-foot cavern was filled with colorful leather bags made by a local artisan named Iota Zaggle.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 8, 2026
It was sunny, with colorful maps and posters on the walls.
From "I Survived the Great Alaska Earthquake, 1964" by Lauren Tarshis
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.
