Beige

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Color

title: "Beige" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public description: "Color" topic_path: "uncategorized" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beige" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary Color ::

::data[format=table title="infobox color"]

FieldValue
titleBeige
hexF5F5DC
sourceX11
isccnamePale yellow green
::

|title=Beige |hex=F5F5DC |source=X11 |isccname=Pale yellow green}} ::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4b/Royal_Winter_Fair_Wool.jpg" caption="Beige}}'' is the French word for the color of natural [[wool]] (freshly shorn example at the [[Royal Winter Fair]])."] ::

Beige ( ) is variously described as a pale sandy fawn color, a grayish tan, a light-grayish yellowish brown, or a pale to grayish yellow. It takes its name from French, where the word originally meant natural wool that has been neither bleached nor dyed, hence also the color of natural wool.

The word "beige" has come to be used to describe a variety of light tints chosen for their neutral or pale warm appearance.

Beige began to commonly be used as a term for a color in France beginning approximately 1855–1860; the writer Edmond de Goncourt used it in the novel La Fille Elisa in 1877. The first recorded use of beige as a color name in English was in 1887.

Beige is notoriously difficult to produce in traditional offset CMYK printing because of the low levels of inks used on each plate; often it will print in purple or green and vary within a print run.

Beige is also a popular color in clothing, such as for men's trousers, as well as for interior design.

Various beige colors

|title=Cosmic latte |hex=FFF8E7 |source=pha.jhu.edu |isccname=Pale yellow green}}

Cosmic latte

Main article: Cosmic latte

Cosmic latte is a name assigned in 2002 to the average color of the universe (derived from a sampling of the electromagnetic radiation from 200,000 galaxies), given by a team of astronomers from Johns Hopkins University.

|title=Cream |hex=FFFDD0 |isccname=Light yellow green}}

Cream

Main article: Cream (colour)

The first recorded use of cream as a color name in English was in 1590. |title=Unbleached silk |hex=FFDDCA |source=JTC |isccname=Pale orange yellow}}

Unbleached silk

Unbleached silk is one of the Japanese traditional colors in use since beginning in 660 CE in the form of various dyes that are used in designing kimonos. The name of this color in Japanese is shironeri. |title=Tuscan |hex=FAD6A5 |source=ISCC-NBS |isccname=Light yellow}}

Tuscan

Main article: Tuscan red

The first recorded use of Tuscan as a color name in English was in 1887.

|title=Buff |hex=DAA06D |spelling=color |isccname=Light yellow

Buff

Main article: Buff (colour)

Buff is a pale yellow-brown color that got its name from the color of buffed leather.{{Citation |last=Paterson |first=Ian |title=A Dictionary of Colour |edition=1st paperback |year=2003 |publication-date=2004 |publisher=Thorogood |location=London |isbn=1-85418-375-3 |oclc=60411025 |page=73 ::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/26/Chamois-natural.jpg" caption="Buff is the color of fine undyed leathers."] ::

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, buff as a descriptor of a color was first used in the London Gazette of 1686, describing a uniform to be "A Red Coat with a Buff-colour'd lining".

|title=Desert sand |hex=EDC9AF |source=Crayola |isccname=Pale orange yellow}}

Desert sand

Main article: Desert sand (color)

The color desert sand may be regarded as a deep shade of beige. It is a pale tint of a color called desert. The color name "desert" was first used in 1920.

::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b2/ATTtelephone-large.jpg" caption="A "beige" AT&T telephone"] ::

In the 1960s, the American Telephone & Telegraph Company (AT&T) marketed desert sand–colored telephones for offices and homes. However, they described the color as "beige". It is therefore common for many people to refer to the color desert sand as "beige". |title=Ecru |hex=C2B280 |spelling=Color |source=ISCC-NBS |isccname=Grayish yellow}}

Ecru

Main article: Ecru

Originally in the 19th century and up to at least 1930, the color ecru meant exactly the same color as beige (i.e. the pale cream color shown above as beige), and the word is often used to refer to such fabrics as silk and linen in their unbleached state. Ecru comes from the French word écru, which means literally "raw" or "unbleached".

Since at least the 1950s, however, the color ecru has been regarded as a different color from beige, presumably in order to allow interior designers a wider palette of colors to choose from. |title= Khaki |hex= C3B091 |source=HTML/CSS |isccname=Grayish yellow

Khaki

Main article: Khaki

Khaki was designated in the 1930 book A Dictionary of Color, the standard for color nomenclature before the introduction of computers.

The first recorded use of khaki as a color name in English was in 1848. |title=French beige |hex=A67B5B |source=ISCC-NBS |isccname=Light brown}}

French beige

| title=Light French beige | hex=C8AD7F | source=Pourpre.com | isccname=Grayish yellow

The normalized color coordinates for French beige are identical to café au lait and Tuscan tan, which were first recorded as color names in English in 1839 and 1926, respectively. |title=Mode beige |hex=967117 |source=ISCC-NBS |isccname=Light olive brown}}

Mode beige

Mode beige is a very dark shade of beige.

The first recorded use of mode beige as a color name in English was in 1928.

The normalized color coordinates for mode beige are identical to the color names drab, sand dune, and bistre brown, which were first recorded as color names in English, respectively, in 1686, 1925, and 1930.

In nature

Fish

In culture

Personal computers

Main article: Beige box

::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2f/Personal_computer_-_Museo_scienza_tecnologia_Milano_14617.jpg" caption="A beige [[IBM 5150]] personal computer"] ::

In the 1970s, 1980s, and early 1990s, personal computers and other office electronics were often colored beige. The trend began in Germany, where workplaces commonly required beige- or gray-colored equipment, and later spread worldwide. Beige's popularity was superseded by black starting in the 1990s, with the release of black computers like the IBM ThinkPad.

Metaphor

Beige is sometimes used as a metaphor for something that is bland, boring, conventional, or even sad. In this sense, it is used in contradistinction to more vibrant and exciting (or more individual) colors.

References

References

  1. ''Oxford English Dictionary''
  2. ''Webster's New World Dictionary of the English Language,'' 1964
  3. Macmillan On-Line Dictionary.
  4. ''Le Petit Robert Dictionnaire''.
  5. {{OEtymD. beige
  6. Maerz and Paul (1930). ''A Dictionary of Colour''. New York, McGraw-Hill, p. 190; Color Sample of Beige: p. 45 Plate 11 Color Sample C2. The color shown above matches the color sample in the book.
  7. (2004-12-28). "The Cosmic Spectrum and the Color of the Universe".
  8. Maerz and Paul ''A Dictionary of Color'' New York:1930 McGraw-Hill p. 206; Color Sample of Cream: p. 41 Plate 9 Color Sample D4 The color shown above matches the color sample in the book.
  9. Nagasaki, Seiki. ''Nihon no dentoshoku : sono shikimei to shikicho'', Seigensha, 2001. {{ISBN. 4-916094-53-0
  10. Nihon Shikisai Gakkai. ''Shinpen shikisai kagaku handobukku'', Tokyo Daigaku Shuppankai, 1985. {{ISBN. 4-13-061000-7
  11. {{usurped
  12. Maerz and Paul ''A Dictionary of Color'' New York:1930 McGraw-Hill p. 206; Color Sample of Tuscan: p. 43 Plate 10 Color Sample E5
  13. (September 2025). "buff, adj.1". OUP.
  14. Maerz and Paul ''A Dictionary of Color'' New York: 1930 McGraw-Hill p. 194; Color Sample of Desert: p. 47 Plate 12 Color Sample I7
  15. {{usurped
  16. Maerz and Paul ''A Dictionary of Color'' New York:1930 McGraw-Hill p. 149—Discussion of the color Beige (shown in this book's color sample as being the same color that is displayed as "beige" in the Wikipedia color box shown above) notes that beige is exactly the same color as Ecru.
  17. (November 2022). "ISCC-NBS Dictionary of Colo(u)r Names (1955): Ea through Ez".
  18. Maerz and Paul ''A Dictionary of Color'' New York:1930 McGraw-Hill p. 197; Color Sample of Khaki: p. 49 Plate 13 Color Sample J7
  19. {{usurped
  20. Maerz and Paul ''A Dictionary of Color'' New York:1930 McGraw-Hill p. 195; Color Sample of French beige: p. 49 Plate 13 Color Sample A7
  21. Maerz and Paul ''A Dictionary of Color'' New York:1930 McGraw-Hill p. 191; Color Sample of Cafe au Lait: p. 47 Plate 12 Color Sample A6
  22. Maerz and Paul ''A Dictionary of Color'' New York:1930 McGraw-Hill p. 206; Color Sample of Tuscan tan: p. 49 Plate 13 Color Sample C8
  23. {{usurped
  24. Maerz and Paul ''A Dictionary of Color'' New York:1930 McGraw-Hill p. 199; Color Sample of Mode Beige: p. 47 Plate 14 Color Sample B5
  25. Maerz and Paul ''A Dictionary of Color'' New York:1930 McGraw-Hill p. 194
  26. Maerz and Paul ''A Dictionary of Color'' New York:1930 McGraw-Hill p. 204; Color Sample of Sand Dune: p. 47 Plate 14 Color Sample B5
  27. Maerz and Paul ''A Dictionary of Color'' New York: 1930 McGraw-Hill p. 53 Plate 15 Color Sample C9
  28. (20 April 2018). "50 Shades of Beige". Science Museum, London.
  29. St. Clair, Kassia. (2016). "The Secret Lives of Colour". John Murray.

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