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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

hue.

A color, or shade of color; tint; dye.

3 characters1 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/hjuː/Received-Pronunciation[ç(j)u̟ː]Received-Pronunciation/hjʉw/British, Southern, Standard[ç(j)ʉw]British, Southern, Standard
  1. A color, or shade of color; tint; dye.

    countable · uncountable
  2. The characteristic related to the light frequency that appears in the color, for instance red, yellow, green, cyan, blue or magenta.

    countable · uncountable
    In digital arts, HSV color uses hue together with saturation and value.
  3. Character; aspect.

    countable · figuratively · uncountable
    This puts a completely different hue on the matter.
  4. Form; appearance; guise.

    countable · obsolete · uncountable
Where this word comes from

From Middle English hewe, from Old English hīew (“appearance, form, species, kind; apparition; hue, color; beauty; figure of speech”), from Proto-West Germanic *hiwi, from Proto-Germanic *hiwją (“hue, form, shape, appearance; mildew”), from Proto-Indo-European *kew-, *ḱew- (“skin, colour of the skin”) or *ḱey- (“grey, dark shade”). Cognate with Swedish hy (“complexion, skin”), Norwegian hy (“fluff, mold, skin”), Icelandic hégómi (“vanity”), Gothic 𐌷𐌹𐍅𐌹 (hiwi, “form, show, appearance”). Compare also Sanskrit छवि (chavi, “cuticle, skin, hide; beauty, splendour”); Irish ceo (“fog”), Tocharian B kwele (“black, dark grey”), Lithuanian šývas (“light grey”), Albanian thinjë (“grey”), Sanskrit श्याव (śyāvá, “brown”).

noun/hjuː/Received-Pronunciation[ç(j)u̟ː]Received-Pronunciation/hjʉw/British, Southern, Standard[ç(j)ʉw]British, Southern, Standard
  1. A shout or cry.

    obsolete
Where this word comes from

From Old French hu or Old French heu, a hunting cry.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.