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
- colorfully adverb
- colorfulness noun
- uncolorful adjective
Etymology
Origin of colorful
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.
Young people of that era wanted something youthful, colorful, sweet — something you’d want to hold on a dance floor under club lights.
From Salon
On a screen, they saw a series of colorful, balloon-like blobs.
From Science Daily
The three-year-old NBA Cup, inspired by similar in-season tournaments in European leagues, has sparked confusion about the colorful courts and ever-changing group stage scenarios.
From Los Angeles Times
In our bizarro world, the “Zootopia” franchise serves as a vehicle for thought-provoking subjects disseminated by way of colorful anthropomorphic animals.
From Los Angeles Times
In an autobiographical summary of his career, Meyer said his favorite toy design was Lite-Brite, which allows people to create colorful designs by plugging plastic pegs into a grid.
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.
