Colors in Italian

Listen to the pronunciation of the colors by a native Italian speaker in the video.

I colori in Italiano

The main colors in Italian are:

nero / nera – black
marrone – brown
grigio / grigia – gray / grey
bianco / bianca – white
giallo / gialla – yellow
arancione – orange
rosso / rossa – red
rosa – pink
viola – purple *
blu – blue
azzurro / azzurra – light blue
verde – green

* Viola, Violetto or Porpora?

Sometimes you will see the color purple incorrectly translated as porpora. This is a false friend and incorrect. Porpora is more of a dark red color. The correct way to say purple is viola. Sometimes you will see the word violetto used as purple. Violetto is actually violet in Italian.

Colors have different forms

Colors are adjectives, words that describe something. Adjectives in Italian must agree with the gender (masculine or feminine) and number (singular or plural) of the noun.

Colors that end in -O normally have a feminine form (ending in -A). They also have a singular and plural form which must coincide with the noun (or subject).

For example, there are 4 forms of the color rosso (red).

Cappello rosso – (rosso is masculine and in singular form, just like the word it describes)
Cappelli rossi – (rossi is masculine and in plural form)
Casa rossa – (rossa is feminine and in singular form)
Case rosse – (rosse is feminine and in plural form)

Notice how the color comes AFTER the word it describes (Noun + Adjective = Thing + Color)

The exceptions are rosa, blu and viola which always maintain the same form (we do not say roso or violo).

i guanti viola – the purple gloves

Be careful with the spelling of bianco in its four forms: bianco, bianca, bianchi, bianche

ESSERE + color

To say that something IS a certain color, you use essere (to be) + color:

La neve è blanca – Snow is white
Il cielo è azzurro – The sky is (light) blue
L’erba è verde – The grass is green
L’elefante è grigio – The elephant is grey/gray

Again, make sure the color coincides in number and gender with the noun it describes.

Chiaro – Scuro

When we talk about colors, we can also include different tones or shades by using the following words:

chiaro = light
scuro = dark

Chiaro is the opposite of Scuro

verde chiaro = light green
verde scuro = dark green

You will notice that the words chiaro and scuro go after the color.

How to say Blue in Italian

For the normal blue color, the Italian word is blu (that wasn’t hard, was it?).

However, the Italian language has a word specifically used for the color light blue … azzurro.

The Italian national football team is known as Gli Azzurri from the traditional colour of Italian national teams and athletes representing Italy.