four-color

[fawr-kuhl-er, fohr-]

adjective

Printing.

1. noting or pertaining to a process for reproducing colored illustrations in a close approximation to their original hues by photographing the artwork successively through magenta, cyan, and yellow color-absorbing filters to produce four plates that are printed successively with yellow, red, blue, and black inks.

Example Sentences

Schneider, 42, is clad in several muted shades of green — a short-sleeved work shirt with a Bic four-color ballpoint in the left breast pocket, paint-spattered pants and lighter green socks.

Read more on Los Angeles Times

Francis Guthrie first conjectured the four-color theorem in 1852 when he noticed that the counties of England only needed four colors to properly fill.

Read more on Scientific American

Eleven years after the publication of the first proof, both proofs were overturned and the slippery four-color theorem reverted its status back to the four-color conjecture.

Read more on Scientific American

In 1976, after years of fine-tuning and over a thousand hours of computer time, their algorithm finished exhaustively checking every case and the four-color theorem was established.

Read more on Scientific American

The New York Times even refused to report on the announcement at first because proofs of the four-color theorem “were all false anyway.”

Read more on Scientific American