Arabic colors come in two kinds. Nine basic colors follow the aFʿaL pattern and change shape three ways: أحمر (aḥmar, red) with a masculine noun, حمراء (ḥamrāʾ) with a feminine one, and حمر (ḥumr) with a plural. Every other color is built from a noun and simply adds a feminine ending.
Every colors-in-Arabic list we could find gives you the first two columns and stops there. The plural column below is the one that goes missing, and it is the column you need the moment you talk about a group of people.
| English | Masculine | Feminine | Plural | Typically used of |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| red | أحمر aḥmar | حمراء ḥamrāʾ | حمر ḥumr | anything |
| blue | أزرق azraq | زرقاء zarqāʾ | زرق zurq | anything |
| green | أخضر akhḍar | خضراء khaḍrāʾ | خضر khuḍr | anything; also "unripe" |
| yellow | أصفر aṣfar | صفراء ṣafrāʾ | صفر ṣufr | anything |
| white | أبيض abyaḍ | بيضاء bayḍāʾ | بيض bīḍ | anything |
| black | أسود aswad | سوداء sawdāʾ | سود sūd | anything |
| brown, tan | أسمر asmar | سمراء samrāʾ | سمر sumr | skin, hair, bread, sugar |
| blond, fair | أشقر ashqar | شقراء shaqrāʾ | شقر shuqr | hair and people; horses |
| ash grey | أشهب ashhab | شهباء shahbāʾ | شهب shuhb | horses, hair; Aleppo's nickname |
How to read this table
Read each cell as script first, then transliteration: أزرق is written alif-zay-ra-qaf and said azraq. Long vowels carry a macron (ā, ī, ū), the emphatic consonants carry a dot (ṣ, ḍ, ṭ, ẓ, ḥ), ʿ is the letter ayn and ʾ is hamza. That one scheme runs through the whole page. If the letters themselves are still new, work through the full Arabic alphabet chart first, because color words are among the first places the alif-hamza spelling matters.
Two rules govern how these words attach to a noun. The adjective comes after the noun, the reverse of English, so a red book is كتاب أحمر (kitāb aḥmar), literally "book red". And the adjective copies the noun: definite with definite, feminine with feminine. The red book is الكتاب الأحمر (al-kitāb al-aḥmar), with the article on both words.
The pattern colors are also diptote, ممنوع من الصرف (mamnūʿ min al-ṣarf). They never take tanwīn, and in the genitive they take a fatḥa instead of a kasra: في بيت أحمر (fī baytin aḥmara), in a red house. Nobody writes those endings in ordinary text, but they matter the moment you read anything vocalized.
We recommend learning each of the nine as a three-part card, masculine plus feminine plus plural together, rather than as a single word. Learning aḥmar on its own and meeting ḥamrāʾ six months later is how most courses do it, and it leaves you with a color you can only attach to half the nouns in the language.
The colors that do not use the aFʿaL pattern
Every color outside the nine above is a nisba adjective: take the noun for a thing that has the color, attach ـي (-ī), and you have the color. These are ordinary adjectives. They take a plain ـة (-a) in the feminine and never touch the aFʿaL pattern.
| English | Masculine | Feminine | Comes from |
|---|---|---|---|
| orange | برتقالي burtuqālī | برتقالية burtuqāliyya | برتقال burtuqāl, the orange fruit |
| brown | بني bunnī | بنية bunniyya | بن bunn, coffee beans |
| grey | رمادي ramādī | رمادية ramādiyya | رماد ramād, ashes |
| purple, violet | بنفسجي banafsajī | بنفسجية banafsajiyya | بنفسج banafsaj, violets |
| pink | وردي wardī | وردية wardiyya | ورد ward, roses |
| gold | ذهبي dhahabī | ذهبية dhahabiyya | ذهب dhahab, gold |
| silver | فضي fiḍḍī | فضية fiḍḍiyya | فضة fiḍḍa, silver |
| navy | كحلي kuḥlī | كحلية kuḥliyya | كحل kuḥl, the black eyeliner |
| turquoise | فيروزي fayrūzī | فيروزية fayrūziyya | فيروز fayrūz, the stone |
| olive | زيتي zaytī | زيتية zaytiyya | زيت zayt, oil |
The derivation is worth memorizing rather than the word, because it keeps working. نحاسي (nuḥāsī, copper-colored) comes from نحاس (nuḥās, copper), and سماوي (samāwī, sky blue) comes from سماء (samāʾ, sky). When you meet a color word you do not know, strip the final ī and look up what is left. You will usually find the object it was named after sitting there.
Light and dark: fātiḥ and ghāmiq
To make a shade lighter or darker, put a second adjective after the color: فاتح (fātiḥ, light) or غامق (ghāmiq, dark). Both are ordinary adjectives, so they agree with the noun exactly as the color does, and in a definite phrase all three words take the article.
| Arabic | Transliteration | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| أزرق فاتح | azraq fātiḥ | light blue |
| زرقاء فاتحة | zarqāʾ fātiḥa | light blue, with a feminine noun |
| أخضر غامق | akhḍar ghāmiq | dark green |
| بني فاتح | bunnī fātiḥ | light brown |
| رمادي غامق | ramādī ghāmiq | dark grey |
| قميص أزرق فاتح | qamīṣ azraq fātiḥ | a light blue shirt |
| السيارة الزرقاء الغامقة | al-sayyāra al-zarqāʾ al-ghāmiqa | the dark blue car |
The literal senses explain the pairing. فاتح is the active participle of "to open", so a light shade is an opened one, and غامق means deep or dense. In more formal writing you will also meet داكن (dākin) for dark, which behaves the same way.
What Egyptians and Levantines actually say
The colors in Egyptian Arabic and Levantine Arabic are the same nine words, with two changes. Spoken Arabic keeps the masculine forms and shortens the feminine ones: the final hamza of the faʿlāʾ pattern drops in both Cairo and the Levant, so حمراء (ḥamrāʾ) is said ḥamra and sounds like any ordinary feminine adjective. This is the single biggest gap between a textbook color list and the street, and it is why a learner who memorized the MSA column can be told a dress is ḥamra and not connect it to anything.
| English | MSA feminine | Cairo and the Levant |
|---|---|---|
| red | حمراء ḥamrāʾ | حمرا ḥamra |
| blue | زرقاء zarqāʾ | زرقا zarʾa |
| green | خضراء khaḍrāʾ | خضرا khaḍra |
| yellow | صفراء ṣafrāʾ | صفرا ṣafra |
| white | بيضاء bayḍāʾ | بيضا bēḍa |
| black | سوداء sawdāʾ | سودا sōda |
The masculine forms survive intact in writing and change only in the mouth. Cairo and Damascus both turn ق (qāf) into a glottal stop, so azraq comes out azraʾ. Egyptians say iswid rather than aswad for black. The broken plurals in the first table are alive in speech too, mostly for people and for body parts: عيون سود (ʿuyūn sūd), black eyes.
Two Egyptian color words are not in any MSA list at all. Pink is بمبي (bambi), not wardī, and light blue is لبني (labanī), from لبن (laban, milk). In the Levant pink is usually زهري (zahrī), from زهر (zahr, blossom). Our Egyptian Arabic, where these color forms sound different page covers the wider vocabulary split.
Mistakes learners make with Arabic colors
The most common one is using the plural in the wrong place. A broken plural such as ḥumr describes a group of people, not a pile of objects. Plural non-human nouns in Arabic take a feminine singular adjective, so red cars is سيارات حمراء (sayyārāt ḥamrāʾ), with the feminine form, and never sayyārāt ḥumr. Get that backwards and you have made cars into people.
English glosses asmar and bunnī with the same word, "brown", and they are not interchangeable. أسمر describes skin, hair, bread and sugar. بني describes a jacket, a door, a table, a car. Calling a person bunnī sounds like describing paint.
Learners also try to bend a nisba color into the aFʿaL pattern, or to hang a nisba ending on a pattern color. Neither works. There is no such word as aḥmarī, and no such word as abran for brown.
One more, and it is the one that catches people out in a shop: the word for color itself gets skipped. It is لون (lawn), plural ألوان (alwān). To ask, say ما لون هذا؟ (mā lawn hādhā) in MSA, لونه إيه؟ (lōnu ēh) in Egyptian, or شو لونه؟ (shū lōno) in Levantine. No verb is needed in the answer.
More Arabic reference tables
This page belongs to a set of charts we keep for looking things up rather than reading through:
- The Arabic weekdays in five varieties, with the country-by-country answer to which day the week starts on
- Arabic kinship terms and the eight words for cousin, laid out by which relative each one points at
- The Arabic numbers table, with Eastern Arabic numerals beside the written words
- Every Arabic letter in its four positional shapes, the chart to start from if the script is still new
- The vocabulary lists we keep, with Anki decks, so the colors above go into spaced repetition the same day you read them
Frequently asked questions
What are the names of colors in Arabic?
The nine pattern colors are ahmar (red), azraq (blue), akhdar (green), asfar (yellow), abyad (white), aswad (black), asmar (brown, of skin and bread), ashqar (blond) and ashhab (ash grey). Everything else is built from a noun with an -i ending: burtuqali (orange), bunni (brown), ramadi (grey), banafsaji (purple) and wardi (pink). The word for color itself is lawn, plural alwan.
What are the colors in Egyptian Arabic?
Egyptians use the same masculine forms as Modern Standard Arabic, with the qaf pronounced as a glottal stop, so azraq is said azraa. The feminine drops the final hamza: hamraa becomes hamra, zarqaa becomes zaraa, sawdaa becomes soda. Two colors are different words entirely. Pink is bambi, not wardi, and light blue is labani, from laban, milk.
Do Arabic colors have a plural form?
Yes. The nine pattern colors take a broken plural on the pattern fuAl: humr for red, zurq for blue, khudr for green, sud for black, bid for white. Almost no color list on the web gives these. You use them for groups of people. Plural objects take the feminine singular instead, so red cars is sayyarat hamraa, never sayyarat humr.
How do you ask what color something is in Arabic?
In Modern Standard Arabic, ma lawn hadha, meaning what is the color of this. In Egyptian Arabic people say lawnu eh. In Levantine Arabic, shu lawnu. The answer needs no verb: lawnu ahmar, its color is red, or just ahmar.
Why is red ahmar but orange burtuqali?
Because ahmar is one of the nine colors old enough to have its own Arabic root, and burtuqali is not. Orange, brown, grey, purple and pink are named after the thing that has that color, with an -i ending attached: burtuqal is the orange fruit, bunn is coffee beans, ramad is ashes, banafsaj is violets and ward is roses. Those five behave like ordinary adjectives and take a plain feminine -a.