Wednesday, March 17, 2010

The Color Green



In honor of St. Patrick's Day, I'm going to do a post on the color green. As a fantasy writer, I tend to use other words to describe the color green because the word "green" seems so ordinary.

Here are some of my substitutes for green:

* Emerald (this one is my favorite!) "Emerald eyes..."
* Olive
* Lime
* Jade

And then their are words I put in front of green to provoke a certain image:

* Sea green
* Forest green
* Jungle Green
* Camouflage green
* Moss green
* Shamrock green

Then there's the blue green word that I love:

*Teal

And for those word collectors out there, here's one that I'd never heard of until today:

* Celadon (Which is a pale tint of spring green)

What color words do you use for your writing? Any other green ones that I missed?

12 comments:

Carol Kilgore said...

Wonderful post. I like color words, too.

These greens come to mind: sage, aquamarine, mint, avocado, pea green, apple, chartreuse, vertigris. And here in South Texas, verde.

Unknown said...

Hello! I found you blog by way of Laurel's Leaves.

When I write, green is my favorite color to describe through smell. For example, green smells like:

* fresh-cut grass
* a squeezed lime
* cilantro
* a rain shower in April
* tomato plants growing in a garden

I look forward to reading more from you!

Angie said...

I love green. Great color words. There all so evocative

Mary Gray said...

Great idea for a post! Wow, Carol has some great ideas. Nicole too.

There's always the good old fashioned 80s favorite: hunter green.

I like sage and olive.

Talli Roland said...

Great post! Funny, I've never actually thought about it. Upon reflection I tend to use crimson a lot in my writing. In my current novel, I have a character called Silver.

Happy St Patrick's Day!

PS - I've also found you by way of Laurel!

Lindsey Duncan said...

I never use chartreuse because I have the darnedest time convincing my brain it's not a shade of red. I don't know why.

I'm amazed no one has said malachite yet. One of my favorites.

Anyhow ... go green!

Julie Dao said...

I love this post, Aubrie. I'm a huge fan of using interesting color words. "Blue" and "green" and "red" just sound so bland. "Azure" and "celadon" and "ruby" are so much more interesting!

Lisa Rusczyk said...

I think of chartreuse as purple for some reason. Sounds purple.

I'm not too visual so I do boring standards. I had one story where my character thought of crayola colors when she was nervous. That was fun.

Theresa Milstein said...

Love the shades of green! My post is in green too and I posted a picture of my trip to Ireland.

I have on seafoam green nail polish. My coat is a kelly green and I'm seeing the ultimate green team - The Celtics - at Boston Garden tonight.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

E.J. Stevens said...

I love emerald as well. :)

I also love Nicole's idea of describing green through smell. So many wonderful ways to describe green!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!
xx,
E.J.

Jess of All Trades said...

Celadon would be a good name for a dragon...

:D

Tahereh said...

awww yayyy awards!!

congrats to everyone!

great blog! :D