umber
/'ʌmbə/
Học thuậtThân thiện
Definition
Noun:
- A medium to dark brown color: A color resembling that of natural brown earth pigments.
- A natural brown earth pigment: A type of clay or earth containing iron and manganese oxides, used historically as a pigment in painting.
Adjective:
- Of a brown color: Having the color of umber, typically a dark, earthy brown.
Examples of Usage
Noun (Color):
- The artist mixed raw umber with yellow to create a muted green.
- The shadows in the painting were rendered in deep umber.
Noun (Pigment):
- The cave paintings were made using charcoal and umber.
- She purchased a tube of burnt umber for her oil painting class.
Adjective:
- The umber hills stretched out under the twilight sky.
- He wore an umber coat that blended with the autumn leaves.
Advanced Usage
"Burnt umber": A pigment that is umber which has been heated (calcined), resulting in a darker, redder brown color.
- Burnt umber is often used to paint rich, warm shadows.
"Raw umber": The natural, unheated form of the pigment, which is a cooler, more yellowish brown.
- Raw umber is excellent for underpainting and creating naturalistic greens.
Variants and Related Words
- Umberous (adj., rare): Resembling or of the color of umber.
- Umbery (adj., rare): Having a brownish color like umber.
Synonyms
- Brown: A general term for the color.
- Ochre: A natural earth pigment, typically yellow or red, but can be brown.
- Sienna: Another natural earth pigment, raw sienna is yellowish-brown and burnt sienna is reddish-brown.
Related Phrases
- "In umber and gold": A descriptive phrase often used in poetry or prose to depict autumnal or dusky scenes.
- The forest was painted in umber and gold.
Idioms
(No common idioms are centrally built around the word "umber." It is primarily a technical/descriptive term from art and color.)
Adjective
- of the color of any of various natural brown earth pigments
Noun
- a medium brown to dark-brown color
- an earth pigment