technicolor

See also: Technicolor

English

Alternative forms

• technicolour (British spelling)

Etymology

From Technicolor.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈtɛk.nɪˌkʌl.ə(ɹ)/
• Homophone: Technicolor

Adjective

technicolor (not comparable)

1. (American spelling) Extremely or excessively colourful.
   • 1941, “Pink Elephants on Parade”, in Ned Washington (lyrics), Oliver Wallace (music), Dumbo:

     I can stand the sight of worms / And look at microscopic germs / But technicolor pachyderms / Is really too much for me

   • 1968, Anthony King (lyrics and music), “Technicolour Dreams”, in Picturesque Matchstickable Messages from the Status Quo, performed by Status Quo:

     Technicolour dreams are all I see / Technicolour dreams of you and me

   • 1976, Walter Becker, Donald Fagen (lyrics and music), “Kid Charlemagne”, in The Royal Scam, performed by Steely Dan:

     On the hill the stuff was laced with kerosene / But yours was kitchen clean / Everyone stopped to stare at your technicolor motor home

   • 2007 May 2, “Letters”, in New York Times‎^[1]:

     It's so hard to be a technicolor girl in an earth-tone world.

   • 2007 November 18, Jim Holt, “Mind of a Rock”, in New York Times‎^[2]:

     How could the electrochemical processes in the lump of gray matter that is our brain give rise to or, even more mysteriously, be the dazzling technicolor play of consciousness, with its transports of joy, its stabs of anguish and its stretches of mild contentment alternating with boredom?

2. (physics) Describing something in a technicolor model, a model that is similar to the Standard Model but lacks a scalar Higgs field.

Noun

technicolor (plural technicolors)

1. (American spelling) A process of colour cinematography using synchronised monochrome films, each of a different colour, to produce a colour print.
2. (informal) Vivid colour.
3. (physics) A collection of theories based on quantum chromodynamics

Usage notes

• Some use the British English spelling of colour to give technicolour, but this might be considered incorrect as the word comes from a trademark spelt without the "u".
• Perhaps the most common use of this word is in the title of the popular musical Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat (1969).

Related terms

• Technicolor yawn
• technicolored
• technicoloured

Further reading

• technicolor on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• “technicolor”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.
• “technicolor”, in Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 1996–present.

Anagrams

• holocentric