yellow
Americannoun
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yellows
plural
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a color like that of egg yolk, ripe lemons, etc.; the primary color between green and orange in the visible spectrum, an effect of light with a wavelength between 570 and 590 nanometers.
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the yolk of an egg.
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a yellow pigment or dye.
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Informal. yellow light.
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Slang. yellow jacket.
adjective
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of the color yellow.
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Disparaging and Offensive.
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designating or pertaining to an Asian person or Asian peoples.
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designating or pertaining to a person of mixed racial origin, especially of black and white heritage.
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having a sallow or yellowish complexion.
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Informal. cowardly.
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(of a newspaper, book, etc.) featuring articles, pictures, or other content that is sensational, especially morbidly or offensively so.
yellow rags;
yellow biographies.
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dishonest in editorial comment and the presentation of news, especially in sacrificing truth for sensationalism, as in
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jealous; envious.
verb (used with or without object)
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yellows,
present (3rd person singular)
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yellowed,
past participle, past
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yellowing
present participle
noun
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any of a group of colours that vary in saturation but have the same hue. They lie in the approximate wavelength range 585–575 nanometres. Yellow is the complementary colour of blue and with cyan and magenta forms a set of primary colours
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a pigment or dye of or producing these colours
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yellow cloth or clothing
dressed in yellow
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the yolk of an egg
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a yellow ball in snooker, etc
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any of a group of pieridine butterflies the males of which have yellow or yellowish wings, esp the clouded yellows ( Colias spp.) and the brimstone
adjective
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of the colour yellow
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yellowish in colour or having parts or marks that are yellowish
yellow jasmine
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having a yellowish skin; Mongoloid
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informal cowardly or afraid
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offensively sensational, as a cheap newspaper (esp in the phrase yellow press )
verb
Sensitive Note
It is perceived as insulting to use yellow to describe a person of Asian or mixed racial origin, as in the terms yellow peril and high yellow.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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yellowsimple
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yellowssimple
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have yellowedperfect
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has yellowedperfect
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am yellowingprogressive
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are yellowingprogressive
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is yellowingprogressive
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have been yellowingperfect progressive
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has been yellowingperfect progressive
Past
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yellowedsimple
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had yellowedperfect
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was yellowingprogressive
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were yellowingprogressive
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had been yellowingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of yellow
First recorded before 900; 1895–1900 yellow for def. 9; Middle English yelou (adjective and noun), Old English geolo, geolu (adjective); cognate with Dutch geel, German gelb, Old Norse gulr; akin to Latin helvus “pale yellow,” Persian zar “gold” ( see jargon 2 ( def. )), Sanskrit hári “brown, green, yellow”
Explanation
Yellow is the color you'll see in a rainbow, right between orange and green. Yellow is the color of daffodils, lemons, and the traffic light that is supposed to make cars slow down. The word yellow comes from a Proto-Indo-European root word that means "to shine." Sunflowers, egg yolks, and corn on the cob all share this bright color, and if you're asked to draw a picture of the sun, you're likely to grab a yellow crayon. The informal meaning of yellow, "cowardly," has been around since the 1850s, and may have originated in a Texas slur for Mexican soldiers, whose uniforms were yellow.
Vocabulary lists containing yellow
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.
See Examples For:
At 141 feet deep, it would be large enough to hold three yellow school buses stacked vertically.
From Science Daily ● Sep. 18, 2026
Mr. Mehta needs costumes in five different shades of yellow?
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 17, 2026
The snakes are named for their distinctive yellow underside, which contrasts dramatically with their darker top half.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 17, 2026
"To be violent conduct, it has to have excessive force or brutality. When you look at that, particularly in full speed, it doesn't have those elements. So therefore, this would be a yellow card offence."
From BBC ● Sep. 15, 2026
Dad finishes his hot dog and pats his mouth with his napkin, wiping away the yellow dot.
From "Keeping Pace" by Laurie Morrison
The outside world recedes, and the colors of the house’s interior slowly deepen from cheerful yellows and blues to muted greens.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 13, 2026
However, there will only be a narrow corridor for the VAR to overturn second yellows.
From BBC ● Mar. 17, 2026
"Across the championship they are the top for penalties conceded, with eight yellows and one red, and the damage it did to them - they conceded 63 points with a player off the pitch."
From BBC ● Mar. 16, 2026
Roughly 8 feet square, this dense frontal forest of figures—part human, part animal, part vegetal—in acidic blues, yellows and greens, is Cubist, Surrealist, Afro-Cuban.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 31, 2026
It was October, and the hillsides were awash in oranges and yellows and reds and greens.
From "Two Degrees" by Alan Gratz
If the sky looks blue, that could also make the sun look yellower.
From Scientific American ● Sep. 1, 2023
Light bulbs with warmer or yellower tones are more suited to our circadian rhythm than bluer light — that’s why the “night” mode on your smartphone uses them.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 20, 2022
It had red writing spelling out the brand name Velveeta, the cheese substance that, depending on your color sense, is either bold gold or yellower than school bus yellow.
From New York Times ● Feb. 9, 2022
In its crystalline form, sodium nitrite looks like a yellower cousin of table salt.
From Salon ● May 23, 2021
The ones that were born a bit yellower to begin with lived to an old age in the drought; the birds couldn’t see them in the parched grass.
From "The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate" by Jacqueline Kelly
Mallory Ortberg: “Jeeves, bring me my whangee, my yellowest shoes, and the old green Homburg. I’m going into the Park to do pastoral dances.”
From Slate ● Feb. 22, 2017
Fishkill Farms has the best eggs with the yellowest yolks.
From New York Times ● Nov. 17, 2016
A Hogarthian cast of characters, from Britain's lordliest media barons to subalterns on the yellowest of yellow rags.
From The Guardian ● Nov. 29, 2012
They imported from Publisher Hearst, then at his yellowest, some of the country's leading scarehead artists.
From Time Magazine Archive
"You had blue eyes, and a fair skin, a very imperious will, and the yellowest hair I ever saw."
From Airy Fairy Lilian by Margaret Wolfe Hamilton (AKA Duchess)
Ms. Brown keeps yellowed documents from the farm’s early days, including the 1741 deed to the property from Lord Thomas Fairfax, who owned millions of acres in Virginia.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 2, 2026
They simply weren’t my taste anymore, and I didn’t like how the resin had yellowed over time.
From MarketWatch ● Jun. 16, 2026
The paper had yellowed from age and the cursive was so ornate the words were hard to make out.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 11, 2026
One of the most intimate items in the collection is Monroe's 1950s brassiere that the auction company said had "yellowed due to age" and was inherited by Monroe's acting coach Paula Strasberg.
From BBC ● Jun. 4, 2026
There was even a yellowed human skeleton in one corner of the room: Mo did not know if it was real or not, but right now it was creeping her out.
From "The Graveyard Book" by Neil Gaiman
By the time a patient experiences signs, such as jaundice – a yellowing of the skin – or abdominal pain, the cancer has often already spread to other organs.
From Science Daily ● Jun. 4, 2026
On the yellowing front page, 20 or so young Greenlanders smile, feet planted in the snow.
From Barron's ● Mar. 3, 2026
It’s the moment of yellowing when lead starts becoming gold but isn’t gold yet.
From MarketWatch ● Jan. 28, 2026
Beneath those were strips of yellowing shoe patterns and a tracing of the actor’s foot with a note written in loopy cursive:
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 24, 2025
Wednesday shrugged, and picked up an old copy of the Reader’s Digest from a small pile of yellowing magazines on the windowsill.
From "American Gods" by Neil Gaiman
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.
