flesh color

American  

noun

1. a color that falls within the spectrum of human skin colors.

2. (no longer in common use; now considered offensive) a yellowish pink or pinkish cream color (approximating the skin color of a white person).

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Sensitive Note

While flesh color originally meant the skin tone of white people, that meaning has been criticized as exclusionary and is now considered offensive. In fact, the term is no longer commonly used without qualifying it with a specific hue, such as peach flesh color or dark flesh color . The word nude in the past has been used to describe a similar hue approximating a white person's skin color and has been criticized for the same reason.

Other Word Forms

• flesh-colored
  adjective

Etymology

Origin of flesh color

First recorded in 1605–15

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

flesh color

While the flesh color is a direct result of carotenoids in their diet, there is also a unique genetic component.

From Salon ● Mar. 17, 2023

The gene beta-carotene oxygenase 1 is responsible for carotenoid metabolism and most likely explains flesh color variation in salmon.

From Salon ● Mar. 17, 2023

The body stocking came along, and the traditional white and pink colors were superseded by a flesh color that matched the owner's own.

From Time Magazine Archive

The gills are broad, nearly white, flesh color near the base, coarsely serrate, becoming cracked in age and in drying, narrowed toward the base of the pileus, not forked, crowded, 4–6 mm. broad.

From Studies of American Fungi. Mushrooms, Edible, Poisonous, etc. by Atkinson, George Francis

The plasmodium as it emerges to form fruit is pale pink or flesh color, slowly deepening to brown as maturity advances.

From The North American Slime-Moulds A Descriptive List of All Species of Myxomycetes Hitherto Reported from the Continent of North America, with Notes on Some Extra-Limital Species by MacBride, Thomas H. (Thomas Huston)