Definition of "colored" []

• Having color: colored tissue paper. (adjective)
• Often Offensive Of or belonging to a racial group not categorized as white. (adjective)
• Often Offensive Black or African-American. (adjective)
• Often Offensive Of mixed racial descent. (adjective)
• South African Of or belonging to a population grouping made up of persons of mixed racial descent or of certain other nonwhite descent, especially as distinguished during apartheid from Blacks, Asians, or whites. (adjective)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "I said somewhere in the early part of this narrative that because the colored man looked at everything through the prism of his relationship to society as a _colored_ man, and because most of his mental efforts ran through the narrow channel bounded by his rights and his wrongs, it was to be wondered at that he has progressed so broadly as he has."
• "˜colored™ because it is impossible for something to be red and not colored."
• "According to journalist Clifton Johnson in 1904, the word was used to refer to blacks in the South and was chosen primarily for it's derogatory value, being considered more offensive than the term "colored," another term commonly used to refer to people of African descent at the time."