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

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The body stocking came along, and the traditional white and pink colors were superseded by a flesh color that matched the owner's own.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 pileus is two to three inches broad, fleshy, then tough, coriaceous; plane, then funnel-shaped, or dimidiate; even; smooth; almost flesh color, varying to reddish-livid, sometimes violet tinted.

From The Mushroom, Edible and Otherwise Its Habitat and its Time of Growth by Hard, Miron Elisha

The hepatized lung tissue in bronchopneumonia when the cut surface is examined is visually of a more or less dark flesh color with paler grayish-yellow dots regularly interspersed, giving it a peculiar, mottled appearance.

From Special Report on Diseases of Cattle by United States. Bureau of Animal Industry