How to express colors and shades (أَلْوَانٌ)

Arabs have always paid great attention to colors, because colors are a tool for distinguishing things, and they can also be used to express feelings

How to express feelings with colors

أَحْلُامٌ وَرْدِيَّةٌ 🌸 Pink dreams

أَيَّامٌ سَوْدَاءُ 😔 Dark days

How to form colors

In Arabic, colors are generally formed using the pattern أَفَعَلُ for the masculine gender (M) and فَعْلَاءُ for the feminine gender (F).

In the patterns أَفَعَلُ and فَعْلَاءُ the tanween and kasrah are not used. For more details, please refer to the rule مَـمْنُوع من الصرف

Examples

Example of using one color in different genders (M and F)

حَـجَرٌ أَسْوَدُ 🕋 Black stone

سَيَّارَةٌ سَوْدَاءُ Black car

How to express the shade of a color

To indicate shades of colors, one can use the words: فَاتِحٌ (light) and غَامِقٌ (dark).

القمرُ في الصَّبَاحِ أصفرُ فاتِـحٌ The moon in the morning is light yellow

القمرُ في اللَّيلِ أصْفَرُ غَامِقٌ The moon in the night is dark yellow

ياء النَّسَب

Some colors can be described using the Arabic ياء النَّسَب to indicate their origin. For instance:

لَبَنٌ - لَـبَنِــيٌّ Milk - Milky

ذَهَبٌ - ذَهَبِــيٌّ Gold - Golden