primary color

/ˈpraɪmɛri ˈkʌlər/

/ˈpraɪməri ˈkʌlə/

Other forms: primary colors

The three most basic shades — red, blue, and yellow — are the primary colors. By combining primary colors, you can theoretically create every other possible hue.

Mixing two primary colors gives you a third, entirely new color. Combine blue and red and you get purple; mixing yellow and blue gives you green. There are no colors you can combine, however, to get one of the primary colors. When this phrase was first used, around 1610, there were believed to be seven primary colors. Later this was amended to the three that are so familiar to us today.

Definitions of primary color

1. noun

   any of three colors from which all others can be obtained by mixing
   synonyms: primary colour

   types:

   primary color for pigments, primary colour for pigments

   any of three pigments from which all colors can be obtained by mixing

   primary color for light, primary colour for light

   any of three primary colors of light from which all colors can be obtained by additive mixing

   primary subtractive color for light, primary subtractive colour for light

   any of the three colors that give the primary colors for light after subtraction from white light

   type of:

   color, coloring, colour, colouring

   a visual attribute of things that results from the light they emit or transmit or reflect