yellow

American  

[yel-oh] / ˈjɛl oʊ /

noun

• yellows
  plural

1. 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.

2. the yolk of an egg.

3. a yellow pigment or dye.

4. Informal. yellow light.

5. Slang. yellow jacket.

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adjective

yellower, yellowest

1. of the color yellow.

2. Disparaging and Offensive.

   1. designating or pertaining to an Asian person or Asian peoples.

   2. designating or pertaining to a person of mixed racial origin, especially of black and white heritage.

3. having a sallow or yellowish complexion.

4. Informal. cowardly.

   Synonyms:

   fearful, timorous, craven

5. 1. (of a newspaper, book, etc.) featuring articles, pictures, or other content that is sensational, especially morbidly or offensively so.

      yellow rags;

      yellow biographies.

   2. dishonest in editorial comment and the presentation of news, especially in sacrificing truth for sensationalism, as in

6. jealous; envious.

verb (used with or without object)

• yellows,
  present (3rd person singular)
• yellowed,
  past participle,  past
• yellowing
  present participle

1. to make or become yellow.

   Yellow the sheets with dye.

   The white stationery had yellowed with age.

yellow British  

/ ˈjɛləʊ /

noun

1. 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

2. a pigment or dye of or producing these colours

3. yellow cloth or clothing

   dressed in yellow

4. the yolk of an egg

5. a yellow ball in snooker, etc

6. 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

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adjective

1. of the colour yellow

2. yellowish in colour or having parts or marks that are yellowish

   yellow jasmine

3. having a yellowish skin; Mongoloid

4. informal cowardly or afraid

5. offensively sensational, as a cheap newspaper (esp in the phrase yellow press )

verb

1. to make or become yellow

Sensitivity

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

• yellowness
  noun
• yellowish
  adjective
• yellowy
  adjective
• yellowly
  adverb

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• yellows
  plural

Participles

• yellowing
  present
• yellowed
  past

Conjugated Forms

Present

• yellow
  simple
• yellows
  simple
• have yellowed
  perfect
• has yellowed
  perfect
• am yellowing
  progressive
• are yellowing
  progressive
• is yellowing
  progressive
• have been yellowing
  perfect progressive
• has been yellowing
  perfect progressive

Past

• yellowed
  simple
• had yellowed
  perfect
• was yellowing
  progressive
• were yellowing
  progressive
• had been yellowing
  perfect progressive

Future

• will yellow
  simple
• will have yellowed
  perfect
• will be yellowing
  progressive
• will have been yellowing
  perfect progressive

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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”

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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.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

yellow yellows yellower yellowest yellowed yellowing

Two weeks earlier, the Patriot team rode in a yellow school bus without air conditioning on a 100-degree day to an away game at Ramona.

From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 1, 2026

At a recycling plant in Coventry, I watched staff sorting rubbish on a fast-moving conveyor belt when a crushed yellow sharps container suddenly appeared among the waste.

From BBC ● Oct. 29, 2026

The glow is most pronounced on the yellow underside of their bodies and along their sides.

From Science Daily ● Oct. 28, 2026

Here, without the support of those yellow bars, the doors could warp or crumple.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 28, 2026

For another thing, its long yellow beak seemed to be attached to its head by a string that tied into a bow at the back.

From "The Very, Very Far North" by Dan Bar-el

But seasoned leaf-peepers know that Virginia’s Shenandoah National Park and Shenandoah Valley are equally majestic places for autumn color, thanks to sugar maples, magnolias and more vegetation that erupts in fiery reds, oranges and yellows.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 27, 2026

You may find soft pink, mauve and lilac relaxing, or you may find yellows and reds more vibrant and lift your mood.

From BBC ● Oct. 14, 2026

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

On the wall behind the couch where clients sit, I hung a tapestry that features a sun rising over an abstract landscape of pinks and yellows.

From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 16, 2026

There are strobe lights, flashing blues, yellows, and grays.

From "They Both Die at the End" by Adam Silvera

Removing the bluer light from the sun should make it look a bit 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

Her small toad-like face looked even yellower than the day before.

From "Murder on the Orient Express" by Agatha Christie

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

Not even the yellowest journals suggested that Banker Morgan was selling his pictures because he needed the money.

From Time Magazine Archive

At such times the stores wake up and put out their smartest calicoes and their yellowest saddles with which to tempt the wary Boer and Boeress.

From Yankee Girls in Zulu Land by Louise Vescelius-Sheldon

Hook always wanted to bite Cosmo with his few remaining yellowed, tiny teeth that Delilah compared to candy corn.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 28, 2026

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

Fruit stored at 30°C yellowed rapidly, while mangoes kept at 12°C maintained their color longer because chlorophyll breakdown slowed significantly.

From Science Daily ● May 23, 2026

“Good night,” he said, and walked away, up the path and into the building, his flashlight bleeding a yellowed, diffuse path before him.

From "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" by Philip K. Dick

Van der poel, Evenepoel, Wout van Aert, Paul Seixas and Pidcock were all there, all animating and pushing to breakaway from one another under gradually yellowing Canadian maples.

From BBC ● Sep. 27, 2026

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

One ledger of yellowing pages vividly evokes the cases of patients from 1919, the year after the end of World War I.

From Barron's ● Feb. 4, 2026

It’s the moment of yellowing when lead starts becoming gold but isn’t gold yet.

From MarketWatch ● Jan. 28, 2026

The papers on the floor are pages from an old day-by- day calendar, the days scattered through the room, all of them yellowing and mouse-bit.

From "Paper Towns" by John Green

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