Definition
nounA color, or shade of color; tint; dye.
nounThe characteristic related to the light frequency that appears in the color, for instance red, yellow, green, cyan, blue or magenta.
Sentence Examples
This girl's hair has the red hue of the setting sun.
This girl's hair had the red hue of the setting sun.
Word Origin & History
From Middle English hewe, from Old English hīew (“appearance, form, species, kind; apparition; hue, color; beauty; figure of speech”), from Proto-West Germanic *hiwi, from Proto-Germanic *hiwją (“hue, form, shape, appearance; mildew”), from Proto-Indo-European *kew-, *ḱew- (“skin, colour of the skin”) or *ḱey- (“grey, dark shade”). Cognate with Swedish hy (“complexion, skin”), Norwegian hy (“fluff, mold, skin”), Icelandic hégómi (“vanity”), Gothic 𐌷𐌹𐍅𐌹 (hiwi, “form, show, appearance”). Compare also Sanskrit छवि (chavi, “cuticle, skin, hide; beauty, splendour”); Irish ceo (“fog”), Tocharian B kwele (“black, dark grey”), Lithuanian šývas (“light grey”), Albanian thinjë (“grey”), Sanskrit श्याव (śyāvá, “brown”).
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"A great chocolate-coloured pall lowered over heaven, but the wind was continually charging and routing these embattled vapours; so that as the cab crawled from street to street, Mr. Utterson beheld a marvellous number of degrees and hues of twilight; for here it would be dark like the back-end of evening; and there would be a glow of a rich, lurid brown, like the light of some strange conflagration; and here, for a moment, the fog would be quite broken up, and a haggard shaft of daylight would glance in between the swirling wreaths."
— 1886 January 5, Robert Louis Stevenson, “The Carew Murder Case”, in Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, London: Longmans, Green, and Co., →OCLC, pages 39–40:
"Trouble had been brewing for some time, and it burst into the open in the ancient capital city of Hué on May 8, 1963. On that day 8,000 to 10,000 Buddhists marched in protest against a government order banning parades and the display of Buddhist flags on Buddha's birthday."
— [1971, Lyndon Johnson, The Vantage Point, Holt, Reinhart & Winston, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 60: