Lilac is a color that is a pale
violet tone representing the average color of most
lilac flower
A flower, sometimes known as a bloom or blossom, is the reproductive structure found in flowering plants (plants of the division Angiospermae). The biological function of a flower is to facilitate reproduction, usually by providing a mechani ...
s. The colors of some lilac flowers may be equivalent to the colors shown below as ''pale lilac'', ''rich lilac'', or ''deep lilac''. However, there are other lilac flowers that are colored
red-violet.
The first recorded use of ''lilac'' as an
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 ...
color name was in 1775.
The color "lilac" has an eponymous book published in 2018 by Coloratura Publisher.
Variations
Pale lilac
Pale lilac is the color represented as ''lilac'' in the
ISCC-NBS color list. The source of this color is sample 209 in the ISCC-NBS Dictionary of Color Names (1955).
Bright lilac
The color bright lilac (displayed on the right) is the color labeled ''lilac'' by
Crayola
Crayola LLC, formerly the Binney & Smith Company, is an American manufacturing company specializing in art supplies. It is known for its brand ''Crayola'' and best known for its crayons. The company is headquartered in Forks Township, Pennsylva ...
in 1994 as one of the colors in its
Magic Scent specialty box of colors.
Rich lilac
Rich lilac, a rich tone of lilac labeled ''lilac'' at Pourpre.com (a popular
French color list), is shown at right. Another name for this color is bright French lilac.
French lilac
The color French lilac is displayed at right. This color was formulated for use in
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, coordi ...
, where a medium dark violet color is desired. The first recorded use of ''French lilac'' as a color name in the
English language
English is a West Germanic language of the Indo-European language family, with its earliest forms spoken by the inhabitants of early medieval England. It is named after the Angles, one of the ancient Germanic peoples that migrated to the ...
was in 1814.
The
normalized color coordinates for french lilac are identical to
pomp and power, first recorded as a color name in English in 1950.
In nature
The
lilac-breasted roller
The lilac-breasted roller (''Coracias caudatus'') is an African bird of the roller family, Coraciidae. It is widely distributed in Southern and Eastern Africa, and is a vagrant to the southern Arabian Peninsula. It prefers open woodland and savan ...
is a member of the
roller family of
bird
Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the laying of hard-shelled eggs, a high metabolic rate, a four-chambered heart, and a strong yet lightweig ...
s. It is widely distributed in
sub-Saharan Africa and the southern
Arabian Peninsula.
In culture
Lilac was a color associated with the final stages of
mourning
Mourning is the expression of an experience that is the consequence of an event in life involving loss, causing grief, occurring as a result of someone's death, specifically someone who was loved although loss from death is not exclusively ...
in English and European cultures.
See also
*
List of colors
These are the lists of colors;
* List of colors: A–F
* List of colors: G–M
* List of colors: N–Z
* List of colors (compact)
* List of colors by shade
* List of color palettes
* List of Crayola crayon colors
* List of RAL colors
* List of X ...
*
Lavender
''Lavandula'' (common name lavender) is a genus of 47 known species of flowering plants in the mint family, Lamiaceae. It is native to the Old World and is found in Cape Verde and the Canary Islands, and from Europe across to northern and easte ...
*
Lilac chaser
The lilac chaser is a visual illusion, also known as the Pac-Man illusion. It consists of 12 lilac (or pink, rose, or magenta), blurred discs arranged in a circle (like the numbers on a clock), around a small black, central cross on a grey backgr ...
(
illusion
An illusion is a distortion of the senses, which can reveal how the mind normally organizes and interprets sensory stimulation. Although illusions distort the human perception of reality, they are generally shared by most people.
Illusions may oc ...
of
visual perception
Visual perception is the ability to interpret the surrounding Biophysical environment, environment through photopic vision (daytime vision), color vision, scotopic vision (night vision), and mesopic vision (twilight vision), using light in the ...
)
References
External links
*
{{Color topics
Shades of violet