“Color, it turns out, was tactical,” writes Stamper. “Thousands and thousands of yards of camouflage covers needed to be dyed ...

The lexicographer Kory Stamper’s “True Color” is a sneakily insightful philosophical treatise on what it means to define ...

The lexicographer’s True Color uncovers early-20th-century scientist I.H. Godlove’s quest to define colors for Merriam-Webster. Can you tell us about your research? I started with a handful of letters ...

Color is so fundamental to how we describe the world that we learn its vocabulary almost as early as the alphabet. Yet from the start, the lesson is misleading. Colors that appear straightforward—red, ...