Beige is variously described as a pale sandy fawn color, a grayish tan, a light-grayish yellowish brown, or a pale to grayish yellow. It takes its name from

French French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to France ** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents ** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...

, where the word originally meant natural

wool Wool is the textile fibre obtained from sheep and other mammals, especially goats, rabbits, and camelids. The term may also refer to inorganic materials, such as mineral wool and glass wool, that have properties similar to animal wool. As ...

that has been neither bleached nor dyed, hence also the color of natural wool. It has come to be used to describe a variety of light

tint In color theory, a tint is a mixture of a color with white, which increases lightness, while a shade is a mixture with black, which increases darkness. Both processes affect the resulting color mixture's relative saturation. A tone is produc ...

s chosen for their neutral or pale warm appearance. ''Beige'' began to commonly be used as a term for a color in France beginning approximately 1855–60; the writer

Edmond de Goncourt Edmond Louis Antoine Huot de Goncourt (; 26 May 182216 July 1896) was a French writer, literary critic, art critic, book publisher and the founder of the Académie Goncourt. Biography Goncourt was born in Nancy. His parents, Marc-Pierre Huot d ...

used it in the novel ''La Fille Elisa'' in 1877. The first recorded use of ''beige'' as a color name in

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

was in 1887. Beige is notoriously difficult to produce in traditional offset

CMYK The CMYK color model (also known as process color, or four color) is a subtractive color model, based on the CMY color model, used in color printing, and is also used to describe the printing process itself. The abbreviation ''CMYK'' refers ...

printing because of the low levels of inks used on each plate; often it will print in purple or green and vary within a print run.

Various beige colors

Cosmic latte

Cosmic latte is a name assigned in 2002 to the average color of the

universe The universe is all of space and time and their contents, including planets, stars, galaxies, and all other forms of matter and energy. The Big Bang theory is the prevailing cosmological description of the development of the universe. Acc ...

(derived from a sampling of the

electromagnetic radiation In physics, electromagnetic radiation (EMR) consists of waves of the electromagnetic field, electromagnetic (EM) field, which propagate through space and carry momentum and electromagnetic radiant energy. It includes radio waves, microwaves, inf ...

from 200,000

galaxies A galaxy is a system of stars, stellar remnants, interstellar gas, dust, dark matter, bound together by gravity. The word is derived from the Greek ' (), literally 'milky', a reference to the Milky Way galaxy that contains the Solar System. ...

), given by a team of

astronomer An astronomer is a scientist in the field of astronomy who focuses their studies on a specific question or field outside the scope of Earth. They observe astronomical objects such as stars, planets, natural satellite, moons, comets and galaxy, g ...

s from

Johns Hopkins University Johns Hopkins University (Johns Hopkins, Hopkins, or JHU) is a private university, private research university in Baltimore, Maryland. Founded in 1876, Johns Hopkins is the oldest research university in the United States and in the western hem ...

Cream

Cream is the color of the

cream Cream is a dairy product composed of the higher-fat layer skimmed from the top of milk before homogenization. In un-homogenized milk, the fat, which is less dense, eventually rises to the top. In the industrial production of cream, this process ...

produced by

cattle Cattle (''Bos taurus'') are large, domesticated, cloven-hooved, herbivores. They are a prominent modern member of the subfamily Bovinae and the most widespread species of the genus ''Bos''. Adult females are referred to as cows and adult mal ...

grazing on natural

pasture Pasture (from the Latin ''pastus'', past participle of ''pascere'', "to feed") is land used for grazing. Pasture lands in the narrow sense are enclosed tracts of farmland, grazed by domesticated livestock, such as horses, cattle, sheep, or swine ...

with plants rich in

yellow Yellow is the color between green and orange on the spectrum of light. It is evoked by light with a dominant wavelength of roughly 575585 nm. It is a primary color in subtractive color systems, used in painting or color printing. In the R ...

carotenoid Carotenoids (), also called tetraterpenoids, are yellow, orange, and red organic compound, organic pigments that are produced by plants and algae, as well as several bacteria, and Fungus, fungi. Carotenoids give the characteristic color to pumpki ...

pigments, some of which are incorporated into the cream, to give a yellow tone to

white White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no hue). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully reflect and scatter all the visible wavelengths of light. White on ...

The first recorded use of ''cream'' as a color name in

was in 1590.

Unbleached silk

Unbleached silk is one of the Japanese traditional colors in use since beginning in 660 CE in the form of various

dyes A dye is a colored substance that chemically bonds to the substrate to which it is being applied. This distinguishes dyes from pigments which do not chemically bind to the material they color. Dye is generally applied in an aqueous solution and ...

that are used in designing

kimono The is a traditional Japanese garment and the national dress of Japan. The kimono is a wrapped-front garment with square sleeves and a rectangular body, and is worn left side wrapped over right, unless the wearer is deceased. The kimono ...

The name of this color in

Japanese Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture ** Japanese diaspor ...

is ''shironeri''.

Tuscan

The first recorded use of Tuscan as a color name in English was in 1887.

Buff

Buff is a pale

brown Brown is a color. It can be considered a composite color, but it is mainly a darker shade of orange. In the CMYK color model used in printing or painting, brown is usually made by combining the colors orange and black. In the RGB color model used ...

color that got its name from the color of buffed

leather Leather is a strong, flexible and durable material obtained from the tanning, or chemical treatment, of animal skins and hides to prevent decay. The most common leathers come from cattle, sheep, goats, equine animals, buffalo, pigs and hogs, ...

According to the

Oxford English Dictionary The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' (''OED'') is the first and foundational historical dictionary of the English language, published by Oxford University Press (OUP). It traces the historical development of the English language, providing a com ...

, buff as a descriptor of a color was first used in the ''

London Gazette London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

'' of 1686, describing a uniform to be "A Red Coat with a Buff-colour'd lining".

Desert sand

The color desert sand may be regarded as a deep shade of beige. It is a pale tint of a color called ''desert''. The color name "desert" was first used in 1920. In the 1960s the

American Telephone & Telegraph Company AT&T Corporation, originally the American Telephone and Telegraph Company, is the subsidiary of AT&T Inc. that provides voice, video, data, and Internet telecommunications and professional services to businesses, consumers, and government agen ...

(AT&T) marketed desert sand–colored telephones for offices and homes. However, they described the color as "beige". It is therefore common for many people to refer to the color desert sand as "beige".

Ecru

Originally in the 19th century and up to at least 1930, the color ecru meant exactly the same color as beige (i.e. the pale cream color shown above as beige), and the word is often used to refer to such fabrics as silk and linen in their unbleached state. Ecru comes from the French word ''écru'', which means literally "raw" or "unbleached". Since at least the 1950s, however, the color

ecru Ecru is still defined by some dictionaries as the colour of unbleached linen, which it still is in French (hex code = #FEFEE0 ), but it is now used for a quite different, much darker color in English. Traditionally ecru was considered a shade ...

has been regarded as a different color from beige, presumably in order to allow

interior design Interior design is the art and science of enhancing the interior of a building to achieve a healthier and more aesthetically pleasing environment for the people using the space. An interior designer is someone who plans, researches, coordina ...

ers a wider palette of colors to choose from.

Khaki

Khaki The color khaki (, ) is a light shade of tan with a slight yellowish tinge. Khaki has been used by many armies around the world for uniforms and equipment, particularly in arid or desert regions, where it provides camouflage relative to sandy ...

was designated in the 1930 book ''A Dictionary of Color'', the standard for color nomenclature before the introduction of computers. The first recorded use of ''khaki'' as a color name in

was in 1848.

Light French beige

Light French beige is the color called ''beige'' on the pourpre.com website, a color list widely popular in

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

French beige

The first recorded use of French beige as a color name in English was in 1927. The

normalized color coordinates Normalization or normalisation refers to a process that makes something more normal or regular. Most commonly it refers to: * Normalization (sociology) or social normalization, the process through which ideas and behaviors that may fall outside of ...

for French beige are identical to

café au lait ''Café au lait'' (; ; French for "coffee with milk") is coffee with hot milk added. It differs from white coffee, which is coffee with cold milk or other whiteners added. Variations Europe In Europe, ''café au lait'' stems from the same ...

and Tuscan tan, which were first recorded as color names in English in 1839 and 1926, respectively.

Mode beige

''Mode beige'' is a very dark shade of beige. The first recorded use of ''mode beige'' as a color name in

was in 1928. The

for mode beige are identical to the color names drab,

sand dune A dune is a landform composed of wind- or water-driven sand. It typically takes the form of a mound, ridge, or hill. An area with dunes is called a dune system or a dune complex. A large dune complex is called a dune field, while broad, fl ...

, and bistre brown, which were first recorded as color names in English, respectively, in 1686, 1925, and 1930.Maerz and Paul ''A Dictionary of Color'' New York: 1930 McGraw-Hill p. 53 Plate 15 Color Sample C9

In nature

Fish Fish are aquatic, craniate, gill-bearing animals that lack limbs with digits. Included in this definition are the living hagfish, lampreys, and cartilaginous and bony fish as well as various extinct related groups. Approximately 95% of li ...

Beige catshark The beige catshark (''Parmaturus bigus'') is a cat shark of the family Scyliorhinidae, The first recorded specimen was a female recorded off the coast of Queensland, Australia around Lord Howe Island. Its length was 72 cm. Recently, a nu ...

Mammal Mammals () are a group of vertebrate animals constituting the class Mammalia (), characterized by the presence of mammary glands which in females produce milk for feeding (nursing) their young, a neocortex (a region of the brain), fur or ...

* Beige rabbit

Metaphor

Beige is sometimes used as a metaphor for something which is bland, boring or conventional. In this sense it is used in contradistinction to more vibrant and exciting (or more individual) colours.

References

External links

{{Color topics