a color term, also known as a color name, is a word or phrase that refers to a specific color. the color term may refer to human perception of that color (which is affected by visual context), or to an underlying physical property (such as a specific wavelength of visible light). there are also numerical systems of color specification, referred to as color spaces. ==in natural languages== monolexemic color words are composed of individual lexemes, or root words, such as "red", "brown", or "olive". compound color words make use of adjectives (e.g. "light brown", "sea green") or multiple basic color words (e.g. "yellow-green"). === color dimensions === there are many different dimensions by which color varies. for example, hue (shades of red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple), saturation ("deep" vs. "pale"), and brightness or intensity make up the hsi color space. the adjective "fluorescent" in english refers to moderately high brightness with strong color saturation. pastel refers to colors with high brightness and low saturation. some phenomena are due to related optical effects, but may or may not be described separately from the color name. these include gloss (high-gloss shades are sometimes described as "metallic"; this is also a distinguishing feature of gold and silver), iridescence or goniochromism (angle-dependent color), dichroism (two-color surfaces), and opacity (solid vs. translucent). === cultural differences === different cultures have different terms for colors, and may also assign some color terms to slightly different parts of the human color space: for instance, the chinese character é (pronounced  in mandarin and  in japanese) has a meaning that covers both blue and green; blue and green are traditionally considered shades of "é." in more contemporary terms, they are è (, in mandarin) and ç¶  (, in mandarin) respectively. japanese also has two terms that refer specifically to the color green,  (, derived from the classical japanese descriptive verb  "to be in leaf, to flourish" in reference to trees) and  (, which is derived from the dutch word "groen"). however, in japan, although the traffic lights have the same colors that other countries have, the green light is described using the same word 
Color Names Shades_of_black Shades_of_blue Shades_of_brown Shades_of_cyan Shades_of_gray Shades_of_green Shades_of_magenta Shades_of_orange Shades_of_pink Shades_of_red Shades_of_violet Shades_of_white Shades_of_yellow