A dictionary of colour

Аннотация

Any attempt to define any particular colour merely by means of words is doomed to failure. We can illustrate the general nature of any particular colour by reference to an object having the same quality (which begs the question) or by reference to its wavelength (which is of interest only as a matter of physics) or by reference to another colour (which becomes circular). For example, ‘Purple’ is defined in the new Oxford Dictionary as ‘a colour intermediate between red and blue’. Blue is defined as ‘a colour intermediate between green and violet’ and violet is ‘a bluish-purple colour’.