Chromatic, a word ultimately derived from the Greek noun χρῶμα (''khrṓma''), which means "complexion" or "color", and then from the Greek adjective χρωματικός (''khrōmatikós''; "colored"), may refer to:

In music

Chromatic scale The chromatic scale (or twelve-tone scale) is a set of twelve pitches (more completely, pitch classes) used in tonal music, with notes separated by the interval of a semitone. Chromatic instruments, such as the piano, are made to produce the ...

, the western-tempered twelve-tone scale *

Chromatic chord Chromaticism is a compositional technique interspersing the primary diatonic scale, diatonic pitch (music), pitches and chord (music), chords with other pitches of the chromatic scale. In simple terms, within each octave, diatonic music uses o ...

, chords built from tones chromatically altered from the native scale of the musical composition *

Chromaticism Chromaticism is a compositional technique interspersing the primary diatonic scale, diatonic pitch (music), pitches and chord (music), chords with other pitches of the chromatic scale. In simple terms, within each octave, diatonic music uses o ...

, the use of chromatic scales, chords, and modulations *

Total chromatic In music, a tone row or note row (german: Reihe or '), also series or set, is a non-repetitive ordering of a set of pitch-classes, typically of the twelve notes in musical set theory of the chromatic scale, though both larger and smaller sets a ...

, the use of all twelve pitches of the chromatic scale in tonal music *

Chromatic fantasia A chromatic fantasia is a specific type of fantasia (or fantasy or fancy) originating in sixteenth-century Europe. In its earliest form, it is based on a chromatically descending tetrachord which arises naturally out of the dorian mode. Consequen ...

, a specific form of fantasia originating in sixteenth century Europe *The

Chromatic button accordion A chromatic button accordion is a type of button accordion where the melody-side keyboard consists of rows of buttons arranged chromatically. The bass-side keyboard is usually the Stradella system or one of the various free-bass systems. Incl ...

*The

chromatic harmonica The chromatic harmonica is a type of harmonica that uses a button-activated sliding bar to redirect air from the hole in the mouthpiece to the selected reed-plate desired. When the button is not pressed, an altered diatonic major scale of the key ...

Chromatic genus In the musical system of ancient Greece, genus (Greek: γένος 'genos'' pl. γένη 'genē'' Latin: ''genus'', pl. ''genera'' "type, kind") is a term used to describe certain classes of intonations of the two movable notes within a tetracho ...

, a genus of divisions of the tetrachord characterized by an upper interval of a minor third *

Diatonic and chromatic Diatonic and chromatic are terms in music theory that are most often used to characterize scales, and are also applied to musical instruments, intervals, chords, notes, musical styles, and kinds of harmony. They are very often used as a pair, ...

, as a property of several structures, genres, and other features in music, often contrasted with ''diatonic'' *

Chromatics (band) Chromatics were an American electronic music band from Portland, Oregon, who formed in 2001. The band's final line-up consisted of Ruth Radelet (vocals, guitar, synthesizer), Adam Miller (guitar, vocoder), Nat Walker (drums, synthesizer), and Jo ...

, an American electronic music band *''

Chromatica ''Chromatica'' is the sixth studio album by American singer Lady Gaga, released on May 29, 2020, by Interscope Records and subsidiary Streamline. Gaga supervised the production with longtime collaborator BloodPop and a variety of other producer ...

'', the sixth studio album by American singer

Lady Gaga Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta ( ; born March 28, 1986), known professionally as Lady Gaga, is an American singer, songwriter, and actress. She is known for her image reinventions and musical versatility. Gaga began performing as a teenag ...

In optics, vision, and color

Colorimetry Colorimetry is "the science and technology used to quantify and describe physically the human color perception". It is similar to spectrophotometry, but is distinguished by its interest in reducing spectra to the physical correlates of color ...

, the science of

color Color (American English) or colour (British English) is the visual perceptual property deriving from the spectrum of light interacting with the photoreceptor cells of the eyes. Color categories and physical specifications of color are associ ...

is sometimes called ''chromatics'' *

Chromaticity Chromaticity is an objective specification of the quality of a color regardless of its luminance. Chromaticity consists of two independent parameters, often specified as hue (h) and colorfulness (s), where the latter is alternatively called ...

, the quality of a color as determined by its "purity" and dominant wavelength *

Chromatic aberration In optics, chromatic aberration (CA), also called chromatic distortion and spherochromatism, is a failure of a lens to focus all colors to the same point. It is caused by dispersion: the refractive index of the lens elements varies with the wave ...

, departures from perfect imaging in optics systems due to dispersion *

Chromatic dispersion In optics, and by analogy other branches of physics dealing with wave propagation, dispersion is the phenomenon in which the phase velocity of a wave depends on its frequency; sometimes the term chromatic dispersion is used for specificity to ...

, the dispersion of light due to differing refraction index for different wavelengths *

RG Chromaticity The rg chromaticity space, two dimensions of the ''normalized RGB'', or rgb, space, is a chromaticity space, a two-dimensional color space in which there is no intensity information. In the RGB color space a pixel is identified by the intensity ...

, a two-dimensional color space in which there is no color intensity information *

Chromatic adaptation Chromatic adaptation is the human visual system’s ability to adjust to changes in illumination in order to preserve the appearance of object colors. It is responsible for the stable appearance of object colors despite the wide variation of light w ...

, the ability for some organisms to perceive objects similarly in varying lighting conditions

In mathematics

Chromatic polynomial The chromatic polynomial is a graph polynomial studied in algebraic graph theory, a branch of mathematics. It counts the number of graph colorings as a function of the number of colors and was originally defined by George David Birkhoff to study ...

, a polynomial which encodes the number of different ways to vertex color a graph using ''n'' colors * Chromatic numbering *

Chromatic index In graph theory, an edge coloring of a graph is an assignment of "colors" to the edges of the graph so that no two incident edges have the same color. For example, the figure to the right shows an edge coloring of a graph by the colors red, blue ...

* Acyclic chromatic number * Strong chromatic number *

Fractional chromatic number Fractional coloring is a topic in a young branch of graph theory known as fractional graph theory. It is a generalization of ordinary graph coloring. In a traditional graph coloring, each vertex in a graph is assigned some color, and adjacent v ...

Vertex chromatic number In graph theory, graph coloring is a special case of graph labeling; it is an assignment of labels traditionally called "colors" to elements of a graph subject to certain constraints. In its simplest form, it is a way of coloring the vertices ...

Other uses

Von Luschan's chromatic scale Von Luschan's chromatic scale (VLS) is a method of classifying skin color. It is also called the von Luschan scale or von Luschan's scale. It is named after its inventor, Felix von Luschan. The equipment consists of 36 opaque glass tiles which ...

, a method for classifying skin color *

Chromatic dragon In the ''Dungeons & Dragons'' (''D&D'') fantasy role-playing game, dragons are an iconic type of monstrous creature. As a group, ''D&D'' dragons are loosely based upon dragons from a wide range of fictional and mythological sources. Dungeons & ...

in Dungeons & Dragons *

chromatic (programmer) Chromatic is a writer and free software programmer best known for his work in the Perl programming language. He lives in Hillsboro, Oregon, United States. He wrote ''Extreme Programming Pocket Guide'', co-wrote ''Perl Testing: A Developer's ...

, a Perl programmer and writer * Chromatics Inc., a manufacturer of color graphics display systems *chromatic, of biological material, the ability to take up

staining Staining is a technique used to enhance contrast in samples, generally at the microscopic level. Stains and dyes are frequently used in histology (microscopic study of biological tissues), in cytology (microscopic study of cells), and in the ...

In music

In optics, vision, and color

In mathematics

Other uses

See also

In music

In Ancient Greek and Byzantine music

In optics, vision and color