primary colour

noun

1. Also called: additive primary. any of three spectral colours (usually red, green, and blue) that can be mixed to match any other colour, including white light but excluding black

2. Also called: subtractive primary. any one of the spectral colours cyan, magenta, or yellow that can be subtracted from white light to match any other colour. An equal mixture of the three produces a black pigment

3. Also called: psychological primary. any one of the colours red, yellow, green, or blue. All other colours look like a mixture of two or more of these colours and they play a unique role in the processing of colour by the visual system

Example Sentences

Badenoch's signals on climate change, on leaving the European Convention on Human Rights, tip towards the right of the Conservative spectrum, on territory that right now, Reform have painted in bold primary colours.

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Here was a leader knowingly painting in primary colours and determined to be heard in our noisy politics.

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He was a primary colours politician — waspish, pugnacious, unrelenting, engaging — and at once complicated and undoubtedly controversial, in his politics and his personal conduct.

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But an hour and a bit of prime-time live television doesn’t offer much scope for that: it is a time for primary colours and punchy arguments.

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In various scientific phenomena -- such as primary colours or spatial dimensions -- three options are also enough to characterise different states.

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