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Glite Dictionary
🎨 A light paint layer 🖼️ A tinted image
color wash

color wash

5.4
A thin see-through layer of water-based paint that gives a surface a soft blended color
  • noun
  • /ˈkʌlər wɑʃ/
  • Specialized
translation icon : lavado de color

Examples

  • It is this viral celeb luxury color wash Viral celeb luxury.

  • The drawing is complemented by lightly modulated color washes for the terra-cotta tiled roofs, whitewashed or yellow brick walls, and cobbled streets.

    Academic text (2005)

  • To create a soft background effect, the artist applied a color wash of light blue over the canvas.

  • The mural features delicate color washes that enhance the intricacies of the design.

  • For the landscape painting, she mixed a color wash to produce gentle variations in the sky's hue.

Synonyms

wash
vscolor wash
  • Specialized
10 6.7

A thin layer of paint or color spread lightly on a surface

is a semi transparent water based layer that creates a subtle blended effect
blackwash
vscolor wash
8.9

A liquid used to make a surface black

is a semi transparent water based tint for gentle blended shade rather than solid coverage

How Opaque

coat of paint
14 2.3
color wash
  • Specialized
5.4
wash
  • Specialized
10 6.7

Surface Forms

color wash singular
color washes plural
colour washes plural
colour wash singular

Morphology

color + wash

The compound is directly compositional: 'color' (a visual hue) combined with 'wash' (a light, transparent layer of pigment) yields a tint or layer of color applied across an image. This follows a common English pattern (a wash of color / color wash) and is cross-linguistically transparent, so a B1 learner who knows both constituents will likely infer the meaning.

Etymology

Color wash comes from painting. A wash is a thin, watery layer of paint and when you add color it softly covers a surface, so a color wash means 'a semi-transparent layer of paint that gives a soft, blended effect'.