Coloured
1 Britishnoun
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old-fashioned an individual who is not a White person, esp a Black person
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a person of mixed ethnic parentage or descent
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a person of mixed ethnic descent speaking English or Afrikaans as their mother tongue
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adjective
adjective
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possessing colour
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having a strong element of fiction or fantasy; distorted (esp in the phrase highly coloured )
Usage
The use of Coloured to refer to a person of mixed ethnic origin is likely to cause offence and should be avoided
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.
State legislatures literally criminalized the possession of things like David Walker's "Appeal to the Coloured Citizens of the World."
From Salon • Mar. 19, 2025
In Cape Town, improvisers picked up on the carnival music of the townships’ Coloured population, a mix of Malaysian, Indian, Dutch, Khoisan and Black African heritages.
From New York Times • Jun. 5, 2024
The Melbourne study is recruiting through a nonprofit partner organization called Many Coloured Sky that supports LGBTQI+ refugees and asylum seekers.
From Science Magazine • Apr. 24, 2024
"Coloured stones performed extremely well, as did signed jewellery... There's a great market out there for rare things, and there are still collectors looking for the very best."
From Reuters • Nov. 7, 2023
I once handled the case of a Coloured man who was inadvertently classified as an African.
From "Long Walk to Freedom" by Nelson Mandela
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.
