English

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Alternative forms

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Noun

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colour bar (plural colour bars) (British spelling)

  1. The segregation of people of different colour or race, especially any barrier to black people participating in activities with white people.
    • 1994, Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom: The Autobiography of Nelson Mandela, London: Abacus, published 2010, page 83:
      That first morning at the firm, a pleasant young white secretary, Miss Lieberman, took me aside and said, ‘Nelson, we have no colour bar here at the law firm.’
    • 2010, Christopher Hitchens, Hitch-22, Atlantic, published 2011, page 205:
      In my hometown of Portsmouth there was a riot in 1943, with the locals scorning attempts by American military policemen to enforce a color bar in the pubs.
    • 2020 October 7, “Network News: Plaque at Chatham honours colour bar pioneer”, in Rail, page 26:
      A plaque commemorating the memory of British Rail guard Asquith Xavier, who broke the colour bar at Euston station in 1966, was unveiled at Chatham station on September 24.
  2. (printing) A pattern of varying tonal density that enables visual and numeric comparisons to be made across multiple printed sheets or pages.
  3. (jewelry) A layer of good jewellery-quality opal within a rough opal.

Synonyms

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