# Color idioms

Idioms that turn on colour — red, blue, green, black, white — often carrying old symbolic weight recorded in Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable (1898).

## About this category

Idioms that turn on colour — red, blue, green, black, white — often carrying old symbolic weight recorded in Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable (1898). Each entry below gives the plain meaning, an origin note honestly attributed to Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable (1898) or marked as uncertain, and a usage example.

## Questions

### Where do the origins for color idioms come from?

Origins on this page are drawn from public-domain reference works, primarily Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable (1898). Where the origin is disputed or unknown, the entry says so plainly.

### Are these idioms still in modern use?

Most are in everyday English; a few are chiefly literary or old-fashioned, and those are flagged in the usage notes.

## Sources

- [Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable (1898) — Internet Archive scan](https://archive.org/details/brewers-dictionary-of-phrase-and-fable)

---
Canonical: https://bestidiomanswers.com/library/color-idioms
Author: Best Idiom Answers — https://bestidiomanswers.com
Publisher: Best Idiom Answers
Published: 2026-07-18T04:16:33.961574+00:00
Modified: 2026-07-18T04:16:33.961574+00:00
Last verified: 2026-07-18
License: Citation License 1.0 — https://bestexpertanswers.com/license
© Adolicious LLC