Vocabulary – 10 Expressions with Color Names!
*NOTE: In English, there are two spellings of the word colour. In American English, the word is spelled color. I have used the American spelling in this post because many of these expressions are used mainly in American English. Everywhere else (Canada, United Kingdom, Australia, etc.), the word is spelled colour.
An English learner recently asked me on Facebook to define some expressions in English that include color names! For each phrase, I have included a headline from an online newspaper that includes the phrase so you can see how it’s used in context. Here are 10 phrases and idioms in English that use color names!
a black eye – (1) an eye injury; the bruise (dark area on skin) that results when someone is punched/hit in the eye; (2) idiom – dishonour or shame
to blackball (someone) (verb) – to prevent someone from joining a group by voting against him/her, or to prevent a project from being approved by voting against it
to blackmail (verb) / blackmail (noun) – a crime; to threaten to tell someone’s secrets or harm them in some way unless that person gives you money or does what you want them to do
a brownout – a period of time in which electricity going to a house or building is reduced, because the power company cannot produce enough electricity to meet demand
Davao City downtown area hit by brownout as electric post falls
a blackout – (1) a period of time when there is no electricity and therefore no lights or power; more severe than a brownout
a blackout – (2) a period of time when information is deliberately kept from the public (for example, a media blackout)
a green thumb – If someone is good at gardening and is able to make plants grow, that person has a green thumb!
a pink slip (idiom) – an announcement or notice from an employer that an employee is being laid off (the employee’s job is ending, the employee is not needed anymore)
55 employees receive pink slip from Hutchinson Regional Medical Center
a red flag (idiom) – a warning sign; anything that lets you know something is wrong, there is a problem, or there is danger ahead
Facebook’s defensive Instagram M&A [merger and acquisition] raises red flag
red ink – A situation where an organization, business, or government is losing money (by spending more money than it is taking in) and accumulating debt; in the past, when a company was in debt it was written in red ink in the accounting books
a white elephant (idiom) – something (a possession, business venture, a building, etc.) that is useless and not very valuable, but that requires a lot of care and money, much more care and money than the thing is worth
Here’s another one:
A red herring
A red herring is a clue or piece of information which is intended to be misleading, or distracting from the actual issue.
Commentary: Ethnicity is a red herring in Trayvon Martin case
http://www.kansascity.com/2012/04/04/3530435/commentary-ethnicity-is-a-red.html
Saludos.
That’s a great expression, Jesús!
Thank you Melanie, yours are great too, some of them I didn’t know…
Keep up the good work!
Jesús.
Thanks! Nice idioms! I`m interested at where and how did the “get a pink slip” appear?
I’m not quite sure! I think at some point in history, the piece of paper that ended someone’s job must have been pink.
Here’s an explanation on another website:
http://www.phrases.org.uk/bulletin_board/23/messages/574.html
Wow, thanks. What about red necks? )))
I forgot about that! Thank you for reminding me! Hmmm…how can we define ‘redneck’ without being mean or offensive?!
Here’s the definition from MW Learner’s Dictionary:
“a white person who lives in a small town or in the country especially in the southern U.S., who typically has a working-class job, and who is seen by others as being uneducated and having opinions and attitudes that are offensive”
http://www.learnersdictionary.com/search/redneck
“Aussie rednecks gaining respect”
http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/opinion/columnists/aussie-rednecks-gaining-respect-145085735.html