of color

Etymology
Attested since the late 18th century, initially in reference to a category of mixed-race (partially black, partially white) people in the Americas; compare 🇨🇬 (attested since at least 1779 in gens de couleur), 🇨🇬. The phrase continued in occasional use throughout the 1800s and 1900s and was used by e.g. in 1963, around which time its modern meaning began to take shape. Use by black activists picked up from the 1970s (e.g. black women who used "women of color" at the in 1977) onward, reaching wide circulation by the 1990s.

Adjective

 * 1)  Nonwhite; of a race other than white, for example black.
 * 2)  Belonging to a category of people with mixed black and white ancestry in the Americas in the 18th and early 19th centuries.
 * 3) * 1801 (edition; original c. 1793), Bryan Edwards, The History, Civil and Commercial, of the British West Indies:
 * [page 1:] Chap. 1. [...] The inhabitants of the French part of St. Domingo, as of all the West Indian Islands, were composed of three great classes: 1st, Pure whites. 2d, People of colour, and blacks of free condition. 3d, Negroes in a state of slavery. The reader is apprised that the class which, by a strange abuse of language, is called people of colour, originates from an intermixture of the whites and the blacks. The genuine offspring of a pure white with a negro is called a mulatto; but there are various casts, [...]. All these were known in St. Domingo by the term sang-melées, or gens de couleur [...]
 * [page 67:] Chap. VI. Consequences in St. Domingo of the Decree of the 15th of May—Rebellion of the Negroes in the Northern Province, and Enormities committed by them—Revolt of the Mulattoes at Mirebalais—Concordat or Truce between the Inhabitants of Port au Prince and the Men of Colour of the 13th of September—Proclamation by the National Assembly of the 20th of September.
 * 1)  Belonging to a category of people with mixed black and white ancestry in the Americas in the 18th and early 19th centuries.
 * 2) * 1801 (edition; original c. 1793), Bryan Edwards, The History, Civil and Commercial, of the British West Indies:
 * [page 1:] Chap. 1. [...] The inhabitants of the French part of St. Domingo, as of all the West Indian Islands, were composed of three great classes: 1st, Pure whites. 2d, People of colour, and blacks of free condition. 3d, Negroes in a state of slavery. The reader is apprised that the class which, by a strange abuse of language, is called people of colour, originates from an intermixture of the whites and the blacks. The genuine offspring of a pure white with a negro is called a mulatto; but there are various casts, [...]. All these were known in St. Domingo by the term sang-melées, or gens de couleur [...]
 * [page 67:] Chap. VI. Consequences in St. Domingo of the Decree of the 15th of May—Rebellion of the Negroes in the Northern Province, and Enormities committed by them—Revolt of the Mulattoes at Mirebalais—Concordat or Truce between the Inhabitants of Port au Prince and the Men of Colour of the 13th of September—Proclamation by the National Assembly of the 20th of September.
 * [page 67:] Chap. VI. Consequences in St. Domingo of the Decree of the 15th of May—Rebellion of the Negroes in the Northern Province, and Enormities committed by them—Revolt of the Mulattoes at Mirebalais—Concordat or Truce between the Inhabitants of Port au Prince and the Men of Colour of the 13th of September—Proclamation by the National Assembly of the 20th of September.

Usage notes
Placed immediately after the noun, e.g. a writer of color, students of color, communities of color. The term was popularized as an alternative to terms like, which delineates its referents only in the negative. Of color may be perceived as euphemistic.

Translations

 * Afrikaans: van kleur
 * Chinese:
 * Mandarin:
 * Danish: farvet
 * Dutch: van kleur
 * Finnish:
 * French: ,
 * German:
 * Italian: di colore
 * Portuguese:
 * Romanian: de culoare
 * Russian:
 * Spanish: de color
 * Vietnamese: da màu
 * Welsh: