Put a Little Color In Your Life

This is a short list of the most commonly used colors in Greek.

• All the color names are adjectives, but sometimes may be used as nouns as well.
  Το κόκκινο σπίτι = the red house (adjective)
  Η άσπρη = (slang) heroin !! (noun)
  Ο μαύρος = the black man (noun)
  The latter (noun) case (as one would expect) is not encountered very often and used only in everyday speech. Whenever an adjective is used as a noun, the noun is implied. Thus, in our examples, "η άσπρη σκόνη" (="the white powder") and "ο μαύρος άνθρωπος" (="the black man") is implied.
• The color adjectives on the above list appear in the Nominative Case of their masculine form. The feminine and neuter adjectives are formed by changing the ending. Thus,
  άσπρος (masc), άσπρη (fem), άσπρο (neut)
  πράσινος (masc), πράσινη (fem), πράσινο (neut)
  and so on.
• The words "μπλε", "καφέ", "ροζ" and "μωβ" are of foreign origin ("καφέ comes from the word for "coffee" and the others come from the French words "bleu", "rose" and "mauve" respectively) and are therefore not conjugated neither do they have different forms for the feminine and neuter.
• The words "πορτοκαλής" and "γκρίζος" form the feminine adjective differently, thus we say
  πορτοκαλής (masc), πορτοκαλιά (fem), πορτοκαλί (neut)
  γκρίζος (masc), γκρίζα (fem), γκρίζο (neut)
• "Πορτοκαλής" comes from the Greek word for orange ("πορτοκάλι"), just like in English.
• Finally, let us note that there also exist archaic words for some of the colors, that are sometimes used in some expressions (such as "υπεριώδης" = "ultraviolet").

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