Definition

1. Adjective:
   • Relating to or characterized by color or hue: Describes something that has color or is related to colors.
   • Music: Based on a musical scale that consists of twelve equal semitones, including all the sharps and flats.
   • Optics: Capable of refracting light without separating it into its constituent spectral colors.

Examples of Usage

• Relating to color:
  • The artist used a highly chromatic palette, filled with vibrant reds and blues.
  • The chromatic aberration in the old lens caused a purple fringe around the edges of the image.
• Music:
  • The piece featured a difficult chromatic run up the scale.
  • He practiced the chromatic scale on his saxophone every day.
• Optics:
  • A chromatic lens is designed to minimize color distortion.

Advanced Usage

• "Chromatic adaptation": The ability of the visual system to adjust to changes in illumination to preserve the appearance of object colors.
  • The camera's software uses algorithms for chromatic adaptation to make white look correct under different lights.
• "Chromatic number" (Graph Theory): The smallest number of colors needed to color the vertices of a graph so that no two adjacent vertices share the same color.
  • Finding the chromatic number of a complex network is a challenging computational problem.

Variants and Related Words

• Chromaticity (noun): The quality of a color defined by its hue and saturation, independent of its brightness.
  • The chromaticity diagram is used to specify colors precisely.
• Chromaticism (noun): Music. The use of notes foreign to the mode or diatonic scale upon which a composition is based.
  • The composer's use of chromaticism created a sense of tension and richness.
• Achromatic (adjective): Free from color; transmitting light without separating it into colors.
  • An achromatic lens is used in telescopes to reduce color fringing.

Synonyms

• Colorful: Having bright colors or a lot of different colors.
• Hued: Having a particular hue or color.
• Diatonic (Antonym in Music): Music. Relating to a standard major or minor scale of eight notes, without the sharps and flats of the chromatic scale.

Related Phrases

• Chromatic scale: Music. A scale consisting of twelve semitones.
  • All pianists must learn to play the chromatic scale smoothly.
• Chromatic aberration: Optics. The failure of a lens to focus all colors to the same point, causing colored fringes.
  • High-quality camera lenses are coated to reduce chromatic aberration.

Adjective

1. being or having or characterized by hue
2. based on a scale consisting of 12 semitones
   • a chromatic scale
3. able to refract light without spectral color separation
   • chromatic lens