The ''Descriptive Color Names Dictionary'' is a dictionary of color names used for mass-market clothing and consumer merchandise, such as those in

mail order Mail order is the buying of goods or services by mail delivery. The buyer places an order for the desired products with the merchant through some remote methods such as: * Sending an order form in the mail * Placing a telephone call * Placing a ...

catalogs. It relates each color name to one or more color swatches in the ''Color Harmony Manual'', a color atlas based on the

Ostwald color system In colorimetry, the Ostwald color system is a color space that was invented by the Baltic German chemist Wilhelm Ostwald. Associated wit''The Color Harmony Manual'' it comprises a set of paint chips representing the Ostwald color space. There ar ...

. The book was edited by Helen Taylor, Lucille Knoche, and Walter Granville, and was published by the

Container Corporation of America Container Corporation of America (CCA) was founded in 1926 and manufactured corrugated boxes. In 1968 CCA merged with Montgomery Ward & Company, Inc., becoming MARCOR. MARCOR maintained separate management for the operations of each company, but ...

in 1950 and distributed free to owners of the ''Color Harmony Manual''. The editors decided to use the ''Color Harmony Manual'' and the Ostwald system as a basis for their dictionary because it is easy to relate to basic color names, includes the

color gamut In color reproduction, including computer graphics and photography, the gamut, or color gamut , is a certain ''complete subset'' of colors. The most common usage refers to the subset of colors which can be accurately represented in a given circ ...

of most mass-market products, and has easily removable double-sided (one glossy, one matte) color chips. Because

colorimetric 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 ...

coordinates of the ''Color Harmony Dictionary'' were published, the names can also be easily related to other color order systems.

Choice of names

The editors chose the names for the dictionary and their corresponding colors by comparing the chips in the ''Color Harmony Manual'' to physical products advertised with color names, and also made reference to a number of already published color dictionaries. Where names referred to natural objects they examined those objects directly.

References

* Walter C. Granville and Egbert Jacobson (1944). "Colorimetric Specification of the Color Harmony Manual from Spectrophotometric Measurements". ''

Journal of the Optical Society of America The ''Journal of the Optical Society of America'' is a peer-reviewed scientific journal of optics, published by Optica. It was established in 1917 and in 1984 was split into two parts, A and B. ''Journal of the Optical Society of America A'' P ...

'' 34(7). 382–395. * Egbert Jacobson (1942). ''The Color Harmony Manual''. Color Laboratories Division, Container Corporation of America. Chicago. * Helen D. Taylor, Lucille Knoche, and Walter C. Granville, eds. (1950). ''Descriptive Color Names Dictionary''. Container Corporation of America. Chicago. Color names {{color-stub