Colorant

Description

Any compound, such as a dye or pigment, that gives color to another material. Colorants may occur naturally in a material (colors in flowers), may be added as part of a mixture (pigments in paint) or may be applied to the surface (dyes on a fiber).

Synonyms and Related Terms

colorants (pl.); colourant (Br.); colorant (Fr.); colorante (Esp., It., Port.); coloring matter

Authority

• Richard S. Lewis, Richard S. Lewis, Hawley's Condensed Chemical Dictionary, Van Nostrand Reinhold, New York, 10th ed., 1993

• Dictionary of Building Preservation, Ward Bucher, ed., John Wiley & Sons, Inc., New York City, 1996

• Random House, Random House, Webster's Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language, Grammercy Book, New York, 1997

• The American Heritage Dictionary or Encarta, via Microsoft Bookshelf 98, Microsoft Corp., 1998

• Art and Architecture Thesaurus Online, http://www.getty.edu/research/tools/vocabulary/aat/, J. Paul Getty Trust, Los Angeles, 2000