A close reading of these excerpts reveals that, despite the many appearances of the word “gun,” authors typically employ it in its usual sense to denote the weapon. In fact, none of the examples explicitly use “gun” as a descriptor of hue. Only in passing do some descriptions hint at tactile or visual attributes—such as the cool, smooth metal noted in [1]—that might evoke an implied “gunmetal” quality. Yet even here, the focus is on the object’s material properties rather than on a defined color. Thus, while modern terminology sometimes speaks of “gunmetal” as a distinct shade of gray, these literary passages illustrate that “gun” remains almost exclusively a reference to an instrument of conflict rather than a deliberate allusion to color [1].
This tab, the new OneLook "color thesaurus", is a work in progress.
It draws from a data set of more than 2000 color names gathered from sources around the Web,
and an analysis of how they are referenced in English texts.
- Enter any color to explore similar colors, as well as objects and concepts associated with the color
in English texts.
Examples: lime green,
lavender.
- Enter any object or concept to see the colors associated with the object or concept in English texts,
as well as words that have a similar color profile. Examples: rage,
sun,
jeans,
royalty.
Some words, like "
peach", function as both a color name and an object; when you do a search for words like these, you will see both of the above sections.