Back Beige Afrikaans رملي (لون) Arabic Beix AST Бэж Byelorussian বেজ (রঙ) Bengali/Bangla Beix Catalan Béžová Czech Beige Danish Beige Spanish Beež Estonian
| Beige | |
|---|---|
 Color coordinates | |
| Hex triplet | #F5F5DC |
| sRGBB (r, g, b) | (245, 245, 220) |
| HSV (h, s, v) | (60°, 10%, 96%) |
| CIELChuv (L, C, h) | (96, 19, 86°) |
| Source | X11 |
| ISCC–NBS descriptor | Pale yellow green |
| B: Normalized to [0–255] (byte) | |
Beige is variously described as a pale sandy fawn color,[1] a grayish tan,[2] a light-grayish yellowish brown, or a pale to grayish yellow.[3] It takes its name from French, where the word originally meant natural wool that has been neither bleached nor dyed, hence also the color of natural wool.[4][5] A more than 300 year old antecessor of the word "beige" can be found in the surname of Louis de Béchameil and the French name for Béchamel sauce.
The word "beige" has come to be used to describe a variety of light tints chosen for their neutral or pale warm appearance.
Beige began to commonly be used as a term for a color in France beginning approximately 1855–60; the writer Edmond de Goncourt used it in the novel La Fille Elisa in 1877. The first recorded use of beige as a color name in English was in 1887.[6]
Beige is notoriously difficult to produce in traditional offset CMYK printing because of the low levels of inks used on each plate; often it will print in purple or green and vary within a print run.[citation needed]
Beige is also a popular color in clothing, such as for men’s trousers, as well as for interior design.
- ^ Oxford English Dictionary
- ^ Webster's New World Dictionary of the English Language, 1964
- ^ Macmillan On-Line Dictionary.
- ^ Le Petit Robert Dictionnaire.
- ^ Harper, Douglas. "beige". Online Etymology Dictionary.
- ^ Maerz and Paul (1930). A Dictionary of Colour. New York, McGraw-Hill, p. 190; Color Sample of Beige: p. 45 Plate 11 Color Sample C2. The color shown above matches the color sample in the book.