Colour, Colours

A man of colour. A negro, or, more strictly speaking, one with negro blood. (See Colours.)

“There are three great classes: (1) the pure whites; (2) the people of colour; (3) negroes and mulattoes.”—Edwards: St. Domingo, i.

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Entry taken from Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, edited by the Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. and revised in 1895.