225. Hues

Apr 13, 2026

Kory Stamper, lexicographer and author of True Color, unpacks the baffling history of naming colours in dictionaries. She tells stories of odd comparative definitions, wartime color research, standards clashing with fashion, and how thousands of colour names exploded through industry and marketing. Short, surprising anecdotes and linguistic puzzles make the hunt for words for colour entertaining.

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INSIGHT

Dictionaries Were Bad At Color

Dictionaries historically treated colors inconsistently, listing only basic colors and a patchwork of 'inherent' and literary names.
Kory Stamper found Webster's Third had eccentric, comparative definitions like begonia defined by other obscure color names, prompting her 12-year investigation.

ANECDOTE

Begonia Sparked A 12 Year Quest

Kory Stamper discovered strange color definitions while proofreading Webster's Third online, like begonia defined via comparisons to unfamiliar colors.
She followed cross-references through the dictionary and that curiosity led her to spend 12 years researching and writing True Color.

INSIGHT

Why Color Chips Were Impractical

Color standards (chips) weren't widely used because color printing was costly and color names shift across fields and time.
Postwar government and industry investment spurred color research and attempts at standardization like the ISCC system that few adopted.

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You know what's an absolutely pesky kind of word to define in a dictionary? Colour names. A passel of lexicographers spent years - decades, even - trying different ways to describe colours in words for Webster's Third International Dictionary. It was such a huge, complicated effort that it took twelve years for former Merriam-Webster lexicographer Kory Stamper to write a book about it.

Content note: this episode contains a couple of category B swears. There is also mention of puke - but, emetophobes, it's not the puke that you think.

Visit theallusionist.org/hues for more information about the topics in this episode plus a transcript of the episode. Find Kory's work at korystamper.com, including her new book True Color: the Strange and Spectacular Quest to Define Color, from Azure to Zinc.

This episode was produced by me, Helen Zaltzman, on the unceded ancestral and traditional territory of xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations. Music and editorial advice were provided by Martin Austwick of palebirdmusic.com.

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