True Color: The Strange and Spectacular Quest to Define Color—from Azure to Zinc Pink

by Kory Stamper

A kaleidoscopic journey through the secret history of hues—and the story of the obsessive genius behind the definitions of colors we use today, from the beloved author of Word by Word

begonia (n.): 3 -s : a deep pink that is bluer, lighter, and stronger than average coral (see coral 3b), bluer than fiesta, and bluer and stronger than sweet william — called also gaiety

What could "bluer than fiesta" possibly mean? While editing dictionaries for Merriam-Webster, Kory Stamper found herself drawn again and again to the whimsical color definitions in Webster’s Third New International Dictionary—especially when compared to the dry and impersonal entries that filled the rest of the volume. Stamper couldn’t help but Who was the voice behind these peculiar definitions?

Meet I. H. Godlove, an erratic but brilliant up-and-coming scientist who was one of the experts Merriam-Webster hired in 1930 to help revise the dictionary to reflect a rapidly modernizing world. His fascinating life mirrors the wild and winding journey that color science, color psychology, and color production took through the twentieth century. Stamper tracks these industries as they move into the atomic age and intertwine in strange and surprising ways, spanning two world wars and involving chemical explosions, an unexpected suicide, dramatic office politics, and an extraordinary love story.

Filled with captivating facts about color words and colors themselves—did you know that the word “puke” used to refer to a fashionable shade of reddish-brown before it was associated with vomit?—and fueled by Stamper’s inexhaustible curiosity, True Color will transform the way you see the world, from black-and-white to Technicolor.

*Includes a downloadable PDF of images from the book

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Art, Science, Language, Linguistics, Audiobook

320 pages, Hardcover

First published March 31, 2026

About the author

Kory Stamper is a lexicographer (that is, a writer and editor of dictionaries) at Merriam-Webster (the dictionary). She has written and appeared in the "Ask the Editor" video series at Merriam-Webster, and has traveled around the world giving talks and lectures on language and lexicography. Her writing has appeared in a number of publications, including The Washington Post, The Guardian and The New York Times. A medievalist by training, she knows a number of languages, most of them dead. She drinks more coffee and owns more dictionaries than is good for anyone.

Reviews

[Hannah Greendale (Hello, Bookworm)]

A bit heavy on the philosophy of observation and the science of perception, and a bit light on fun color facts, so I'm setting this aside for now.

Perhaps it's the subtitle that led me astray, but I thought this would be an amusing book about various colors and the challenges found in defining them, along with some fun facts about them. Instead, it's a biography about a scientist named I. H. Godlove, whom Merriam-Webster hired to help revise the dictionary. Interesting facts about color can be found here, but 100 pages in, they are few and far between.

[Rachel Pollock · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although I am neither a color scientist nor a lexicographer, I have run dye facilities for theatrical costume shops for decades, and color control is exceedingly important to costume designers. Many prefer to talk about the colors they want used rather than provide color swatches, despite the nebulous interpretation of speech with respect to color. Many consider the emotion evoked by a color to be of primary import in the context of theatrical production.

I have worked with creatives who use emotional language rather than color samples to communicate their intentions with respect to how fabrics and costume pieces should be dyed; for example, “this pink needs to be a little more sad,” or “jazz up this orange with more jubilance.”

So a book about the struggle of lexicographers putting together a new edition of a dictionary at a time when the field of color science was beginning to be broadly studied and codified, is directly in my wheelhouse.

I don’t want to nerd out too hard in this book review, so I’ll just mention a few of the interesting (to me, at least) topics covered—synthetic dyestuffs in wartime, color standardization for commercial foodstuffs, urine colorwheels as diagnostic tools (really). The book then dives deep into the pedantic minutiae of hardcore word-nerds battling over hairsplitting points of the definition of colors across the spectrum, with coalitions pulling for scientific rigor, artistic license, practical systemization, and other factors.

This involves exactly the kind of low-stakes drama and beefing I love.

About halfway through the book, the focus turns to color psychology and fashion forecasting, which are fascinating in and of themselves, although be advised that some of the early fashion color names involve racist slurs and other dubious language that now feels jarring & icky.

The book then segues into the maddening limitations to which women scientists were subjected in the mid-20th century—eyeforking yet unsurprising.

I wouldn’t recommend this book to every theatrical dyer, or even everyone who works with color in a scientific, commercial, or artistic context. I can only say that if this review intrigues you, definitely check it out.

[Anna · Rating 3 out of 5]

Netgalley ARC- Ms. Stamper has a very interesting writing style which was fun to read. I alternatively found myself laughing and saying Huh? There were parts where the history got a bit bogged down. It wasn't quite about the color names as much as about defining words and how we perceive versus know colors but overall it was a very decent read.

[Ericka Seidemann · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book, mostly, but like other reviewers have mentioned this is not really a book about color. Color is discussed, but the central focus of the book is the minutia of office political drama during the creation of Merriam-Webster’s third edition. There were numerous interesting stories about color names, advertising, chemistry, and anthropology sprinkled throughout, but Stamper got in the weeds for a few chapters about the back-and-forth of different personalities in the new dictionary creation in the mid-20th-century. Kudos to Stamper, though, for including oft-ignored information about the contributions of women during this period. I’m definitely going to grab a copy of Word by Word!

Many thanks to Netgalley for the advance copy.

[Hobart · Rating 4 out of 5]

This originally appeared at The Irresponsible Reader. If you like this post, you might like others on that site. Consider checking it out!
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WHAT'S TRUE COLOR ABOUT?
Have you ever had trouble describing a color to someone? Strange sea creatures, sunsets, a (hopefully) food stain on a shirt, paint on a wall? It's not easy. For some of us more than others, I'm sure (I'm at the weak end)—but it's not that easy.

Now, try to imagine doing it not for a friend or paint clerk—but for the thousands or more that might read your description (read: definition) in a dictionary or other reference work.

Stamper points to two significant markers in the development of these definitions. The first is that prior to the First World War, Germany was the world's biggest source of commercial dyes. During the War, two things happened—first, those plants became weapons factories (and learning how easy that was is a bit disconcerting), and second, places like the U.S. had to start producing their own. And if, say, two different suppliers understood a tint of green differently—the camouflage they provided to the Army in Europe could have significant consequences.

The other is a little less dramatic, but no less impactful. When people in the U.S. started making oleomargarine in the 1800s, dairies were upset about them coloring it to look like butter—this resulted in legal battles, and eventually, the U.S. Congress weighed in.

These two things began efforts in the U.S. to codify colors, dyes, hues, and whatnot into some sort of standard.

Fast-forward to when Kory Stamper is editing Merriam-Webster's website (and from her description, this is not an easy job), when she came across some odd color definitions. The wording was odd, the definitions themselves were puzzling—where did these come from?

Thus begins this story about the attempts to define colors—in a way that satisfies diverse audiences like artists, scientists, and general readers—during the development of their Second and Third Unabridged Dictionaries. Stamper tells the story of putting these dictionaries together, some of the editors who worked on them—and worked with outside consultants like I. H. Godlove (and his wife and colleagues) and others to craft these definitions.

It's a book of human drama, academic politics, technological limitations, and the limits of human language and understanding.

WHY DID I PICK THIS UP? WHY DID I KEEP READING?
I picked this up because I enjoyed Stamper's earlier book Word by Word: The Secret Life of Dictionaries and because I was intrigued by the question—how do you define a color? I also hoped to pick up some tips to help me with that. Spoiler: I did not. But I don't care. This was better. It's also encouraging to know that even professional definers struggle.

Why did I keep reading? There's just so much trivia—especially in the beginning, so many strange little facts you pick up along the way—for example (taken from the publisher's description, because I hate to ruin stuff like this) "did you know that the word 'puke' used to refer to a fashionable shade of reddish-brown before it was associated with vomit?"

But more importantly, I was just fascinated by the way these editors and experts went about putting together these dictionaries—the differences in approach between the two—and so on. Stamper can make what one might think is dry and dusty history come alive and fill it with humanity.

Readers of Nero Wolfe will learn that he wasn't the only one who had problems with the Third Unabridged Dictionary—although most derided it in reviews or newspaper articles, rather than burning it page by page in their fireplace.

SO, WHAT DID I THINK ABOUT TRUE COLOR?
I was, again, fascinated by the people she focused on to tell her story. I wanted to talk to people about them—I'd like to learn more about them and their work.* Her following up with the Godlove family's living relatives so we could get more insight into the people behind the work was a wonderful touch.

Like her previous book, True Color will disabuse many of what they imagine the behind-the-scenes of Dictionary production is like. You will read about one of the worst bosses around, for example. Stress, overwork, burnout, crazy turnover, rampant misogyny (okay, you might have guessed that given the time periods), tiny budgets, and more. It turns out that Dictionaries are put together by human beings, not beings of pure intellect.

Also, I cannot say enough about Stamper's use of language. It will not come as a surprise that someone who works on dictionaries has a way with words—she has ready access to all the best ones, after al—but to see it in action is something else. Stamper's rich vocabulary is on full display here, and she crafts it beautifully.

* I will not—particularly about their work, I wouldn't understand it. But I wanted to.

Disclaimer: I received this eARC from Knopf via NetGalley in exchange for this post, which contains my honest opinion—thanks to both for this.

[Cindy · Rating 4 out of 5]

In the mid-20th century Merriam Webster put out two massive unabridged dictionaries. This is primarily the story of how they included "color" in those books. I never would have guessed that this was a big deal, but there were thousands of entries on color - mostly on different shades. How in the world do you explain "azure" (from the title), for example, with words alone?! Different dictionary and color experts had numerous, strongly held, ideas about how this ought to be done.
I love to read a book about a subject I knew nothing about. I'm going to think about color and about dictionaries in a whole new way! And I hope I'm not making this sound dry, because "True Color" includes many human stories and I chuckled often as I read.

[Samantha · Rating 2 out of 5]

Interesting at times, but largely exhausting.

This is, at its heart, a book about lexicography rather than a book about color. I had hoped for something that felt more like a lexicographer’s history of how colors got their names, but this far more focused on the philosophical approach to naming and defining colors.

It’s interesting in theory, but feels a bit like the mind-bendy nonsense that is often offered up in poorly run Intro to Philosophy college courses, a sort of jumped up obfuscation that is designed to teach you a capital L Lesson that mostly leaves you feeling tired, annoyed, and not much better informed than you were before being forced to play Russian Roulette with language.

We get very little history of color and its naming conventions here, which is disappointing. I felt like I was having to work a lot harder to understand this than I anticipated, but somehow also learning a lot less than I expected.

There are also a lot of digressions into dictionary history, something we’ve gotten a LOT of in recent nonfiction. It takes up a lot of real estate here in a book that is supposed to be focused on a specific segment of lexicography.

Even the humor here is exhausting. It isn’t that Stamper is never funny. She is, but the tone is very schtick-ish, and it gets old fast, and often feels like a try-hard attempt to offset all the linguistic gymnastics with…more linguistic gymnastics dressed in a slightly different outfit.

In all, there are parts of this that are fascinating, and the research is certainly sound. But it’s tiring to read with little payoff in exchange, and not exactly as advertised.

*I received an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.*

[Nostalgia Reader · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars.

A combination history of color name standardization, detailed history of the process of publishing Webster's Third Unabridged Dictionary, and mini-biographies of I.H. Godlove, the main color scientist that worked on defining for The Third. There were some sloggy bits that focused a bit too much of one or the other of the above, but overall it was an interesting deep dive into both dictionary publishing and color naming.

[Demetri · Rating 5 out of 5]

Trying to Name the Rainbow
Kory Stamper’s “True Color” and the beautiful, doomed effort to make perception hold still
By Demetris Papadimitropoulos | March 21st, 2026


A desk, a spill of spectral light, and the hush of recent labor – this image holds the book’s central tension in place for a moment, as if language, art, and classification might yet persuade color to stay still.

Color feels self-evident until someone asks you to define it. Then it wriggles. Is blue a wavelength, a sensation, a social agreement, a paint chip, a piece of sky, a memory of sky, or simply the name we keep fastening to a recurring visual event? As someone who has spent a lifetime making and looking at art, I felt that instability less as a philosophical puzzle than as a familiar studio fact. Color is never merely surface. It carries heat, appetite, weather, ceremony, grief. “True Color” begins inside that wobble and has the good sense not to tidy it up too quickly.

Kory Stamper starts with a lexicographer’s private delight: the gloriously odd color definitions in “Webster’s Third,” full of “begonia,” “fiesta,” and the immortal “sea pink.” From that oddity she builds a larger, stranger history of what happens when scientists, editors, bureaucrats, manufacturers, and marketers all try to pin an unruly thing to a serviceable scheme. The book’s subject is color, certainly, but its deeper subject is translation under pressure – between perception and language, between expert precision and ordinary speech, between the authority institutions want and the approximations people can actually use.

That doubleness gives the book its snap. A more dutiful version of this project might have settled for attractive arcana: old dye charts, strange dictionary entries, committees with grandiose titles, dead men with severe views on olive drab. Stamper gives us the dead men, and some of them are so earnest they verge on self-parody. But she keeps asking the harder question beneath the charm: what does it mean to define something that refuses to hold still? Each domain wants color fixed in its own way. The physicist wants measurement. The dictionary editor wants words that can survive daylight. The wartime manufacturer wants a standard that can be reproduced before the war ends. The pharmacist would prefer not to guess what “reddish green” means. The artist already knows that two blues can begin quarrelling on a canvas long before either one submits to a chart.

The book ranges widely, but its lines of force stay clear. Stamper begins with the original nuisance of color itself: what seems obvious to the eye turns slippery the minute physics, biology, neurology, psychology, and language all enter the room and begin politely disagreeing. From there she moves into the industrial and wartime histories that made standardization urgent. Synthetic dyes, grading systems, camouflage, and supply chains turn color from adornment into infrastructure. The National Bureau of Standards starts trying to define hues for everything from uniforms to denture teeth. Merriam-Webster, meanwhile, attempts something even touchier: to produce authoritative color definitions that are scientifically respectable without becoming unreadable. Into that breach steps Isaac Godlove, a chemist, color theorist, amateur artist, and one-man argument for the value of intelligent mediation. Later the frame widens again to include Philip Gove’s remaking of “Webster’s Third,” the moral panic that followed its publication, and, most crucially, the overdue return of Margaret Godlove from the margins to the center of the story. By then the question is no longer whether color can be fully defined. The book has answered that already. It cannot. The better question is why we keep trying, and what those attempts reveal about the way knowledge is made, used, sold, and misassigned.


Here color loses any claim to innocence, becoming a wartime problem of manufacture and survival – a murky green-brown burdened with all the pressure of getting the visible world exactly, urgently right.

Stamper’s prose is what keeps all this from thickening into specialist paste. She has a knack for making a difficult idea behave just long enough for a reader to see it from several sides. Her analogies do real labor. An orange, a raccoon, a patch of paint, a war uniform, a dictionary slip: she keeps turning abstraction into something you can point at. The sentence music is supple without turning mannered. She likes a medium-length explanatory run followed by a quick dry snap; she knows when a joke will carry an argument farther than solemnity; and she has the good manners to let a sentence end before it congratulates itself. Even the wit has a method. It is not there to sugar the science. It is there to expose the vanity of any system that thinks it has finally cornered reality. When she dismisses “dark weak orange” as a “dark, weak pile of garbage,” the line is funny, but it is also exact: the joke tells you more about unusable precision than a paragraph of dutiful explanation could.

Just as importantly, Stamper never confuses fluency with simplification. She can translate Irwin Priest’s contempt for everyday color names, the officious ambitions of color science, or the production snarls at Merriam into prose that never seals the reader out. But she does not sand away the remainder. She explains clearly without pretending the problem has become simple. That distinction gives the book much of its authority. Plenty of explanatory nonfiction achieves clarity by shaving off difficulty. Stamper does something harder. She arranges the difficulty, lets you feel its edges, and then shows why the edges matter. A term that looks settled turns unstable. A standard that looks rigorous turns unusable. A dictionary entry that first appears absurd reveals a crooked but serious attempt to make visual knowledge verbal.

The structure is more cunning than it first appears. There are no formal parts, but the book is carefully staged. Early chapters establish the instability of color across perception, language, and science. Middle chapters drag that instability into institutions – committees, correspondence, production schedules, budgets, dictionaries. Later chapters turn the same logic back on the people doing the work. That delayed re-centering of Margaret Godlove is one of Stamper’s smartest moves. It forces a retrospective correction. Earlier chapters do not become false, exactly, but they become suddenly half-blind. The story of Isaac’s brilliance is also the story of a woman measuring chips, converting them into notation, organizing pockets, finishing definition work, and being paid a stenographer’s wage while the official record kept looking elsewhere. At that point the book’s argument about classification sharpens at once. Systems do not merely sort colors. They sort labor, prestige, and who gets seen.

This is where “True Color” becomes more than an ingenious history of standardization. It becomes a book about how people make the world legible without ever fully taming it. The clearest emblem comes when Godlove pushes back against ugly pseudo-precision like “dark weak orange” and returns to the ordinary word “brown.” That is not a retreat from rigor. It is rigor chastened by use. A system that cannot meet its users where they live is not more exact; it is merely more self-impressed. Stamper is superb on this point. The world reaches us twice, the book suggests: first through perception, then through the systems we build to stabilize perception. For me, as a lifelong artist, this is where the book bit deepest. It never treats color as trivial surface or as a puzzle best left to laboratories and committees. It understands color as something mixed, judged, remembered, stained into the hand, carried in the eye. Artists learn early that color is relational before it is theoretical. A gray goes warm because of the red beside it. A blue can look bruised in one light and ceremonial in another. Stamper does not romanticize that instability, but she respects it. The charts matter. So does the eye lifting from them.


A quiet work surface of chips, paper, and measured care, this image honors the hidden labor that made systems legible while history kept looking past the hands that ordered them.

Its second great feat is moral as well as intellectual: it changes who the story belongs to. Margaret Godlove’s emergence is not a dutiful contemporary correction bolted onto an older narrative. It reorders the narrative itself. Stamper shows, persuasively and without melodrama, that Margaret was not a helpmate hovering politely at the edge of her husband’s work. She was doing the work – measuring, organizing, converting, refining, making the color system usable off the page, later helping produce the glossy chips that gave the ISCC-NBS standard a practical life beyond theory, and finally completing, decades later, the visual supplement the original standard lacked. Stamper wisely does not overheat this material. She lets the wages, records, tasks, and absences do the accusing. The effect is stronger for being so controlled. By the time Margaret comes fully into view, the whole book has acquired a second subject: not only how color is standardized, but how intellectual history keeps mislabeling the people who make its standards possible.

The clearest weakness is structural. Now and then “True Color” returns to its best insight without raising the stakes enough to justify the extra lap. The central idea – that color resists stable definition, and that every attempt to fix it reveals fresh instability – is a rich one, and Stamper proves it early. She extends it compellingly through war, manufacturing, lexicography, medicine, labor history, and public argument. But in the final third, a few stretches of editorial weather and institutional procedure soften the pressure. These chapters are not empty. They are often sharp, occasionally very funny in a paper-cut sort of way, and full of useful friction. Still, they can feel more cumulative than dramatic. The book begins to recontextualize more than it escalates. The slackening is real, even if it comes from the book refusing a tidier lie. A cleaner book might have moved faster. It would also have been less true to its own subject, which keeps showing that no standard arrives all at once, neatly, or with the decency to end on cue.

Yet the lack of a fake crescendo is one of the things that makes the book trustworthy. Stamper knows a project like this cannot end in perfect triumph without betraying its own argument. The late material on the overlong, underfunded, stop-start afterlife of the ISCC-NBS standard sharpens rather than resolves the book’s question. One of the best late observations comes from an admirer of the standard who loves it partly because so much work went into something that, on the surface, “didn’t go anywhere.” That lands first as a joke and then as the book’s sternest truth. These systems do go somewhere, of course. They harden into habit. They shape products, dictionaries, judgments, and ways of seeing. But they do not arrive at perfection. They become serviceable, then influential, then partial again.

The book’s afterlife beyond its subject is obvious enough that it does not need to wave for attention. Stamper is writing about dictionaries, dyes, charts, and committees, yet the book speaks naturally to larger arguments about standards, expertise, shared language, and invisible labor. It also understands something many current debates still resist: description is never neutral, but neither is it surrender. To describe the world as it is used, seen, and spoken is not to give up on rigor. It is to admit that rigor without legibility is a private hobby. That insight gives the book its reach. “True Color” feels not reactive but diagnostic – a study of the recurring human urge to build systems sturdy enough to help and humble enough to fail.

For me, “True Color” settles at 93/100, which on a blunt Goodreads scale means 5 stars: not flawless, but excellent in a way that lasts. The difference is worth keeping. Stamper has written a book that looks genial, behaves rigorously, and turns out to be more daring than it first appears. It knows that dictionaries are made by committees and temperaments as much as by principles, that standards are never merely technical, and that the distance between assistant and author is often only the distance history was too lazy to measure correctly.


At the edge of the review, color loosens back into atmosphere – no longer pinned to chart or definition, but returning to the fugitive, luminous uncertainty the book never tries to conquer.

The book ends exactly where it should: not with color mastered, but with color still slipping the knot. That turns out not to be a defeat, or not only that. “True Color” is finally about the human compulsion to keep reaching anyway – with spectrophotometers, painted cards, glossy chips, definitions so specific they nearly blush, one more effort to say what blue is without merely pointing at the sky. By the last page, Stamper has made even approximation feel luminous. The rainbow remains where it always was – untouchable, shifting, faintly insolent – and all our careful systems look beautiful not because they capture it, but because they know they won’t.


These first small studies test the painting’s balance of stillness, asymmetry, and pressure, searching for a composition that could hold the book’s argument without explaining it too literally.


At this stage the image begins to breathe – structure, light, and the first fragile movement of color emerging together before the final atmosphere settles across the page.


This palette study works through the book’s visual logic in miniature, testing how muted papers, olive shadows, and slipping spectral notes might carry tension without losing restraint.

All watercolor illustrations by Demetris Papadimitropoulos.

[Deepak Jaisinghani · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bottomline: Mine not to reason why, mine but to read and die.

This was, without exaggeration, my most anticipated book of 2026. I had been awaiting its arrival for the better part of a year, and, in a serendipitous twist of fate, it was scheduled to release on my birthday. I could've hardly hoped for a more felicitous gift from the cosmos! Did it meet my astronomical expectations? No. Was it a bad book, then? Certainly not. What follows may be a long review, but much like its subject, I promise it won’t be devoid of color.

Ever since I devoured her book Word by Word (part lexicographical memoir, part behind-the-scenes exposé of dictionary-making), I became an ardent aficionado of Kory Stamper. There are authors one admires, others one respects, and then there are those rare few one adores. Stamper, for me, belongs emphatically to the last category. Her prose possesses an understated, hilarious wit. Her language sparkles like cut crystal catching oblique sunlight. Her quirky, delightfully eccentric idiolect is nothing short of addictive. I found myself checking for updates on her next work with the whimsical irregularity of a long-term investor peeking at a dormant portfolio.

A decade in the making, True Color opens with a compelling account of wartime exigencies that necessitated the standardization of color. From there, Stamper leads us through a kaleidoscope of topics - synthetic dyes, urine colorwheels as diagnostic tools (yup, that's a thing), and protracted legal skirmishes over butter vs. margarine, where color became the unlikely battleground. She introduces us to four categories of color (basic, intrinsic, associative, and fancy), how to make sense of them and why they are divided so.

At first, the book ostensibly deals with the pedantic minutiae of word-nerds battling over hairsplitting pabulum. Not complaining, it's a relief from 'heavy' books I generally opt for. This kind of low-stakes drama slowly grows on you. Even the chapter titles are idiomatically color-coded: Out of the Blue, Silver Bullet, Greenhorn, Yellow Brick Road, Red Tape, Gold Standard, Red Hot, etc.

But... (and there is always a 'but', isn’t there?) Everything I just praised is largely confined to the opening chapters. Chapter 3 onwards, the book undergoes an abrupt tonal metamorphosis. Look, if you promise water, give me water. Even if you hand me a chocolate then, disappointment is inevitable. However delicious it tastes, that was never part of the bargain. It doesn’t take long for True Color to reveal its… well, true color.

Part of the blame rests with me. The subtitle, 'The Strange and Spectacular Quest to Define Color from Azure to Zinc Pink' should have been a clue. It's only after you start reading that you realise how heavily it leans on the word 'define'. It's a book about colors, yes, but it's more of a book about defining colors, about dictionaries. Is that bad? No, but it's not what I was expecting. For months, I'd been anticipating reveling in a book that'll drown me in utterly fascinating facts about colors. This was something else.

The shock of that revelation was yet to fully sink in when the book took another U-turn and turned into a biography of the color scientist I.H. Godlove. The man was a brilliant, zealous and tragically overworked Colorimetrist and Color Curator. His terrific life-story is to die for. Trust me, it'll be money and time well-spent, but again.. This is simply not what I signed up for. Maybe Stamper should've released this book under a different name. Ceteris paribus, I am sure it would've landed a spot in my top five picks of the year.

It further devolves into part office-politics drama, part meditation on the soul-sapping rigors of lexicography. By this point, I was beginning to lose interest and question my existence when it takes yet another turn, this time for good. Almost miraculously, it rights itself.

The narrative circles back to the wondrous world of color. We are treated to explorations of color psychology and its (mis)use in fashion forecasting, as well as the systemic constraints imposed upon women color scientists in the mid-20th century. Only if there were more such lesser-known tidbits about color!

A small but curious aside - every writer has a lexical signature, their pet words, consciously or otherwise. Stephen King fans are familiar with his overuse of 'chambray', Stephenie Meyer had 'chagrin', Jeffrey Archer doubled down on 'nonchalantly', Rowling loved 'hardly'. Stamper, ever the lexicographer, seems fond of 'picayune' and 'boondoggle', deploying them with such frequency I began to wonder how it passed the editor's table unscathed. It’s not a flaw, merely a signature - but a conspicuous one.

On a more personal note, I remain unconvinced by the very premise of defining colors. Why attempt to imprison something inherently visual within the rigid confines of language? Consider a definition such as 'a strong pink that is yellower than carnation rose, but slightly lighter than sea pink, with moderate chromaticity but dark saturation.' First of all, what in the name of slightly lighter, but moderately dark Hell is 'sea pink'? I have a hard time imagining simple descriptions such as 'yellowish brown' or 'greenish violet', and you expect me to understand this fresh VistaVision glory of a definition? God knows I am BIG on words! But if someone like me finds this entire exercise futile, you know we've got a problem. After reading the book, I know now how defining a color can literally mean the difference between life and death, but still. There's a thing called Internet. Just google it, dude!

This is not a book for everyone. It's the sort of book that you'd either fall head over heels for, or ignore out of hand. My expectations played a spoilsport, but you know what you are getting into. If this stuff sounds like music to your ears, feel free to dive in. Even if it doesn't, I'd recommend you to read Stamper's Word by Word. Authors like Kory Stamper are hard to come by. If it takes becoming one of Lord Tennyson's unquestioning soldiers to admire her, then so be it.

[Curtis Edmonds · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have a child who is allergic to nonfiction--not all kinds of books, just nonfiction. (We read to them until they made it to high school, every night, all of Harry Potter and Tolkien, and one time I read "Oranges" by John McPhee, and this child still resents me for that, so you get the idea.) I told her I was reading a book about color, and she said, "Why?"

"Well. it's not about color. It's about how you define color in a dictionary."

"Oh, my God, why would you want to read that?"

Reader, she had a point.

If you look at the cover, and the title, you would think--anyone would think--that this was a book about color. It is not. If you read the subtitle, the word "define" appears, and that gives the game away. This is about how you define what color is in a dictionary. Specifically, how they defined color in two dictionary editions in the mid-twentieth century. And the book is that way because the author is a lexicographer, and she has unlimited access to the Merriman-Webster archives, which is the source for most of the book, and that is why the book is the way it is and if you are going to read this book you need to know that ahead of time because otherwise you are going to be dreadfully disappointed.

At some level, I think, most people can understand the difficulty that the long-ago lexicographers of yore had in defining color. I mean, think of a color, any color you like, and try to figure out how you would put it in the dictionary. I am right this second looking at the next book I have to review, which is TWELVE MONTHS by Jim Butcher, and it has a glowy fiery yellow sigil in the background. What color is that? It's yellow, but it's not buttercup-yellow or mustard-yellow or goldenrod or any other sort of shade like that, it's more golden than anything else, but a very yellowy gold, if that makes sense, and if you are reading this review (thank you for reading this far) you will get the idea that there is difficulty in defining that. And the printing process being what it is, well, you can't just print out a blob of color, because that's difficult to do, and expensive, and...

And, well, why would you want to do that? You know what "yellow" is already, you don't need to go to the dictionary to figure that out, I mean, you've known what "yellow" is your whole life. But if you are writing a dictionary (an unabridged dictionary!), you can't just leave words out because everyone knows what that means. You have to have some way to define things.

So, you know, I get it. And if there had been a laser-like focus on color and how color was defined at, let's say, the length of a long magazine article, it would have been okay. That is not this book. Because there is a stretch in this book, a very long stretch, where the author explores the transition between the second edition of the dictionary, and the third edition of the dictionary, and the personalities and the HR decisions that went into setting up the team that was writing the third edition, and none of this (I can't stress this enough) has anything to do with color, and the purpose of all of this is to set up the idea that one of the senior staff was, hmm, how to say this, not the sort of person you would want to work for. And then when the narrative turns back to color, you get paragraphs like this:

His work on the Third was a source of frustration or confusion for his friends at the NBS, though, who couldn't understand why the lexicographers wer second-guessing a system based on scientific principles, and why they were dictating that science move at the pase of publishing, when obviously any scientist knows it's the opposite. When Godlove wrote in 1953 to the NBS colorimetrist Kenneth Kelly to ask if the ISCC-NBS committee had finished all the Munsell notation for the charts--Merriman would need them--Kelly was baffled as to why he couldn't just wait until the NBS had property reviewed, set, and published the new notations.

And it goes on like that, for pages, and other than a little bit of good-natured ribbing by the author aimed towards her long-ago lexicographer subjects, that is what you are going to get.

I did not finish this book (this is about 60% of the way through, which is about where I stopped) and absent a sudden recurrence of insomnia I am probably not going to finish it. I gave it four stars because it is, absolutely, one hundred percent, the single best book that was ever written or that is ever going to be written about how color was defined in mid-century American dictionaries. Why anyone would want to read that is, sadly, well beyond me.

[Oni Banks · Rating 3 out of 5]

True Color by Kory Stamper

True Color: The Strange and Spectacular Quest to Define Color is an account of how the complexity of color was translated into language. It addresses the reasons that led to the need for a standard nomenclature for color. And how, like the tower of Babel, this attempt at a universal language was fraught with obstacles.

I went into to this read with no expectation other than to learn something new and I did!

It is not the easiest read, but far from dull. In the course of completing “the Third” (Merriam-Webster’s dictionary withparticular focus on color definitions) there was suicide, cancer, explosions, long feuds (by letter), abused/overworked employees, departmental infighting, credit stealing, and a failed hostile takeover are all a part of the tale. Ever heard of Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis? You will! As the book progressed, I was grateful for my science background to help keep me afloat with all the vocabulary.

If you are civilian to the world of color (like me) – I advise skipping the preface. Go back to it after you’ve finished – it will make sense then. The first chapters do an excellent job of pulling the reader in with global history and humor. Concerns ranged from the visibility of gas clouds during chemical warfare, to the color of margarine being anything but yellow. It was easy to grasp how capitalism continued to drive the pursuit of the Third long after World War I.

You learn about the the key players in the lexicography of color: Priest, Carhart, Godlove, Gove, Oakes, Driscoll, Nickerson, Martin, and Noss. Despite pouring decades of knowledge and work into the project, numerous women went underpaid and uncredited.

You will learn tidbits of how a wide array of industries such as: fashion, food, pharmaceuticals, horticulture, art, and advertising require a language for color. And ultimately how limiting language is compared to the boundless imagination of the human mind. Color is in a unique experience to every individual. Influenced not only by their biological sight, but also by their education, and personal experiences.

Much of the writing in True Color is visual and vibrant. A few of my favorite passages are:

“Dyeing killed”

“You will see the nanostructures in question swirling inside each of the feather’s barbules and be lost in a thousand cathedral windows of atomic color:” (Reviewer: be still my nerdy heart – lol)

“the appropriate response was to throw yourself under the erudite wheels of lexicography and be anonymously crushed”

“tens of thousands of entries to wheedle out of these petty dictators of their tiny academic islands”

I have no background in the language or history of color. I’m a complete novice at make-up. I don’t even watch home décor or make-over shows. My only regular interaction with color (besides online clothes shopping) is when I select the design for my manicure every three weeks. But I know that color matters to me. It greatly influences my mood, and how I select what I spend my money on (see my shelf of special editions with sprayed edges, lol).

I found the middle of this book laborious. Lots of the same terminology and names being repeated over and over. I felt as fatigued at the editors of the Third. I most enjoyed learning about the women who had been omitted from the original published dictionary. Most notably Margaret Noss, Dorothy Nickerson, and Anne Driscoll.

I rated True Color 3.5 stars

Thank you to NetGalley and Knopf for this ARC in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

[Nancy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Creating an unabridged dictionary is, at its core, a lesson in futility. from True Color by Kory Stamper

My love affair with color and color names began very young–with my first box of 64 color Crayola crayons. I still remember the names of my favorite colors. Periwinkle. Sky Blue. Carnation Pink. Spring Green. Salmon. Cornflower. Sea Green. Orchid. Thistle. Goldenrod. Plum.

In recent years I have enjoyed reading a number of books about dictionaries and how word definitions evolve. So, with my fascination with color and interest in words, this book caught my eye.

I knew from my time as a copywriter working with artists that cyan, magenta, and yellow were core to making all printed colors. I knew from watching Mom mix oil colors how red, green, and blue, along with white and black, can made any color. I understand that objects reflect some parts of light, which we experience as color. And gloss in paint deepens color: I fell in love with a photograph of a paint in a room, which on my office wall is far deeper and darker and intense than in the room pictured.

But I had never considered the importance of defining what color is, or how to identify specific colors. Or, knew that our color perception could be based on our language and expectations. Turns out the Himba people refer to one group of light greens and blues under one color term, while other light blues and greens are considered a different color name!

With the rise of technology and manufacturing, it became important to standardize the color of products to appeal to consumers. Products needed to be graded, standardized, identified.

I knew that early oleo-margarine was sold with a yellow dye to make it look like butter, but not that there was pressure to make it black or red so customers KNEW it wasn’t butter!

In the 1930s, the Merriam-Webster Third dictionary was being revised. It was to include new words from emerging technology, including color definitions based on science. Color definitions became quite complicated and detailed. Later there was a rebellion that sought to return to clearer definitions.

The Third was full of technical vocabulary, but it wasn’t the result of a dastardly plan to make communist robots of us all. I was the unfortunate consequence of one man’s nearly monomaniacal desire to get language right, pure, and clear–al language. from True Color

I learned about the organizations that arose to coordinate everything color and the researchers who forged the research and language.

All this technical and historical information is presented in an entertaining way that I enjoyed.

Thanks to the publisher for a free book through NetGalley.

[Robert Stevens · Rating 4 out of 5]

I first heard about this book on the Lingthusiasm podcast, where they highlighted the surprisingly dramatic world of dictionaries and color definitions. What sounds like a niche topic quickly becomes something much bigger: a story about language, science, and the impossible task of trying to define something as subjective as color.

At its core, this book tells the story of the effort by dictionary editors and scientists, especially at Merriam-Webster, to define thousands of color terms in the early twentieth century. This was not just an academic exercise. Color needed to be standardized for industry, science, and even military use, but the process quickly became chaotic. Scientists wanted precision, while lexicographers wanted definitions that ordinary people could understand. The result was years of arguments, personality clashes, and what can only be described as “dictionary drama.”

The book is filled with memorable figures, but the most compelling story is that of Margaret Godlove, the central woman whose contributions had long been overlooked. Initially known mainly as the wife of color scientist Isaac Godlove, she emerges as the true intellectual force behind much of the work. Stamper gradually uncovers that Margaret was not just assisting as she was deeply involved in developing color systems, producing reference materials, and ultimately shaping the definitions that appeared in the dictionary. I want to know more about her.

After her husband’s death, Margaret continued the work and helped bring the project to completion, even though women in her time were often excluded from recognition in scientific fields. In many ways, the book becomes her story: a recovery of a hidden figure whose impact on how we describe color still exists today.

What makes Stamper’s writing stand out is her tone. She turns technical material (colorimetry, lexicography, and classification) into something engaging and often funny. The absurdity of trying to define a color (“bluer than X, duller than Y”) highlights a deeper truth: language is messy, and even something as seemingly simple as color resists clear boundaries.

Overall, this book is not just about color. It is about how humans try to impose order on the world through language—and how that process is shaped by conflict, personality, and overlooked contributors. Most importantly, it restores Margaret Godlove to her rightful place in that story, transforming what could have been a dry history into something genuinely compelling.

[Steve's Book Stuff · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kory Stamper is a former associate editor for Merriam-Webster dictionaries and is the author of Word by Word: The Secret Life of Dictionaries. For a time, she also was a presenter on Merriam-Webster’s online “Ask the Editor” videos. A true word-nerd full of “hard-earned vocabularic snark”, her writing in Word by Word was a pleasure to read. I gave it four stars on Goodreads back in 2018. Booklist called it a “spirited book about the science and art of making dictionaries. It is by turns amusing, frustrating, surprising, and above all, engrossing."

I’m happy to report that True Color is even more amusing, surprising and engrossing. In this book Stamper takes us on a deep dive into the definitions of color used in the Merriam-Webster’s Third New International Dictionary, Unabridged. The Third, as she calls it, was published way back in 1961. During Stamper’s time there, Merriam-Webster began the work of revising the Third and it was then, she says, that her “love affair with color began”.

And so our journey begins. First, we take a deep dive into what exactly color is (how would you describe “green” to a blind person?). Then Stamper gives us a taste of the use of color words in the real world, where frustratingly different industries (dye, paint, fashion) use different words for the same color. And at last we arrive at the heart of the book where Stamper takes us through a history of the color definitions in Merriam-Webster dictionaries.

Lexicographers, it seems, are mostly overworked, detail-oriented folks. This is particularly true of those who work through the ranks to earn an editor’s title. In areas like color definitions, these editors reach out to acknowledged experts. In this case that would be another set of detail-oriented folks called color scientists. You might think stories featuring drudges characters like these, while they wrangle word definitions, would be boring. But in Stamper’s hands the quirky personalities shine, and their colorful stories come to life.

I flew through this book, and I think it will have wide appeal. Read it for your own inner word-nerd, and for the vocabularic snark, and care, that Stamper takes to reveal these fascinating stories of defining color.

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thank you NetGalley for providing a free Advanced Reader Copy in exchange for an honest review.

Kory Stamper takes on the impossible task of capturing color's absolute definition, in this humorous book about the rise (and conflicts) of naming conventions. Yes, you've read that right: a book about how color is defined in dictionaries is surprisingly hilarious. "True Color" delves into the science of color, lexicology, and philosophy, to capture the tumultuous times for lexicographers of the early and mid 20th century. She starts by defining the difficulties in perceiving color--whether due to biological differences, or distinct chemistry or physical properties of the paints and surfaces imbibed with said paints. She links the increasing demand for well-defined and reproducible colors with the shortages of the first World War. Pharmaceutical, food, and color standards are all intrinsically linked in ways I could never have imagined; and I definitely didn't imagine that WW1 started yet another war, this one for the purity and clarity of the English language. Stamper goes in detail over the efforts to define color in the Merriam-Webster Second and Third dictionary editions--sometimes painful details, unless perhaps you too are a lexicographer and are obsessed with every little detail (this part was a bit hard to read for me). Thanks to her background, Stamper uses and amuses us with a diverse vocabulary that would make any proficient user of a thesaurus blush--although at times her choices were a bit irritating, like the ungodly number of times the word "moolah" was deployed. Overall however I found the book informative, light and thought-provoking. The burning question: should we use mathematical/physical precision to define colors, or should common usage lead, remains unanswered to this day. Cultural differences in defining color further complicate an international standardization. Defining color is an ever shifting effort, as beautiful and elusive as the shimmering hues on the neck of a hummingbird. 3.5 stars, rounded up.

[Frank · Rating 4 out of 5]

The world of color illuminates nearly every aspect of life, from astronomy to fashion, cars to geology. True Color is about the language we use to make sense of color in all its glorious -- and vexing -- hues of meaning. But it's also about dictionaries and standards and just how hard it is to pin down words with precision, and the people, particularly one couple by the name of Godlove, who dedicated their lives to trying to get colors nicely sorted and standardized. True Color is about color language in all its glorious -- and vexing -- hues of meaning. But it's also about dictionaries and standards and just how hard it is to pin down words with precision, and the people, particularly one couple by the name of Godlove, who dedicated their lives to trying to get colors nicely sorted and standardized.

Combing through the archives of Merriam-Webster, Big Dictionary itself, as well as personal papers, former Merriam-Webster lexicographer Kory Stamper narrates the production of the Third Edition through the prism of the color words. The pedantry, pettiness, penny-pinching, sexism, overwork, ill health, and even death involved with a lexicographical undertaking make for a fascinating saga.

What True Color is not is an etymological work. Frankly, I thought there'd be more about where color words actually come from, and while there's a bit here and there, for the most part Stamper isn't concerned with that. That's the main reason I give a four- rather than five-star rating. And though Stamper does an admirable job of making it as painless and comprehensible to the layman as possible, there still is a lot of technical language that can make one's eyes glaze over.

Highly recommended for word nerds and color enthusiasts.

[Gia · Rating 3 out of 5]

The focus and obsession with making these definitions be able to adequately define and depict the levels of colors is vast and complex. We all see the world differently and for anyone to take on that challenge is a huge task. For someone who has grown up with the definitions that so much effort and work has been put into it is surreal to learn about the history of color definition.

The imagery associations and definitions the lexicographers seemed to understand in the beginning was that it was important to invoke a feeling and accuracy for each shade and variation for these colors.

Defining colors with emotion and visual references has always been a norm for me and I couldn't image a timeline without it. And as far as curiosity goes I often go down rabbit holes searching for more in-depth knowledge and understanding of lost of things. Other readers who like to get stuck in to niche history facts will appreciate Stamper's approach with this book.

Unfortunately I wasn't surprised with racist social threads mentioned in the early days of color definitions that eventually made their way to the root definition examples. Although a small portion of a passages covers this, as a woman of color it's something that sticks with you.

Predominantly, I did expect to get more of a color theory with this book rather than a heavy history and textography lesson but that's on me for assuming. Readers of True Color can expect to learn of the key figures working directly with Webster over nearly a decade to intricately define color shades and tones for a dictionary company that had internal struggles on its own.

[Kim · Rating 4 out of 5]

How do you define color? That is, how do you write a dictionary definition for the color red? What, exactly, is sea pink or fiesta? When lexicographer Kory Stamper came across these color definitions and others in Webster’s Third New International Dictionary, she had to know where the often whimsical definitions came from. What she found was a twenty yearlong drama involving scientists, court cases, intense office drama, and the amazing love story that helped us define color in the latter half of the twentieth century.

And sure, this sounds like it could be a boring story, but in Stamper's capable hands it all comes to life. You get to know the people who worked– sometimes obsessively– on the dictionary definitions of color as well as learning who was responsible for finishing the color section and why she was denied so much of the credit for her accomplishments.

Though things can get very technical when it comes to measuring color, Stamper doesn't let the jargon get out of hand, providing plenty of explanations and enough simplified background information that the average reader who isn't fully versed in colorimetrics can understand what's going on without being completely distracted from the broader story of the people who worked so hard for so long to define an aspect of our lives that, nevertheless, often defies description.

Thanks to Stamper's wit and storytelling prowess, True Color brings life and color to what would, in other hands, be a dull and tiresome story.


Thank you to NetGalley and Knopf for the advance digital copy for review.

[Erin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thanks to Knopf and NetGalley for allowing me to read an advance copy of this book.

I am an unrepentant nerd. I love learning about the special interests of other unrepentant nerds. Kory Stamper is an unrepentant word nerd, and I love her so much for it. I adored her debut Word by Word about the workings of the Merriam-Webster dictionary. It's so nerdy. It's nerdy with funny nerdy footnotes. That is the absolute best kind of nerdy.
Needless to say, I was stupid excited to read True Color. Because Kory Stamper is a nerd. And because I am a nerd about color. And this a very nerdy book by a nerd about something the author is nerdy about married to something I was nerdy about.
I adored this book! It's a wonderful history of the creation of the Merriam-Webster 3rd unabridged edition, the various attempts at codifying color both academically and industrially, and the rigors of managing a project of tremendous magnitude. Stamper painted lovely, nuanced portraits of a number of figures involved in the structuring and defining of color terms in the 3rd. She gave complete pictures of their personality quirks, failures, and successes with a touch that made me feel charmed by and empathetic for even the martinets.
While this book is certainly niche, it was so much fun to read (more amusing footnotes-yay!!!). It is absolutely worth the read if you have even the slightest interest in learning more about the machinations of an unusual profession.

[jude goldstein · Rating 3 out of 5]

thanks to netgalley and knopf for the advanced copy of this book. as kory stamper herself says in her epilogue, this book is about color but also about dictionaries. i would edit that for myself and say this book is about dictionaries and also about color. as other reviewers have already said, this book is a gold mine for nerds who want to know all the inside dynamics of creating and editing a dictionary. this is the story of lexicographers. i thought this book would be about color. even the title says it: "from azure to zinc pink". it is not about color. not really. barely. truly. and as a color person who has just painted a new home with colors with names like "citron" "eucalyptus" "alpine white" "citrus burst" "labrador blue" "weeping willow" how blue am i?" "unspoken love" and more (!), i was so excited. and so disappointed. i found the book way too long and very repetitive. i found myself skimming in the second half and then just giving up and reading the epilogue, which i liked a lot. i admire all of the research that went into telling this story. that part definitely intrigued me in the beginning. but then it got bogged down. for me. if you are interested in lexicographers and also enjoy reading fiction/historical fiction, i thought "the dictionary of lost words" was a beautiful view of how dictionaries are created. well, that's all for me, for now. i was sad to have to write this review.

[kelsey · Rating 4 out of 5]

i have no doubt in my mind that this book was an absolute labor of love. the history, context, and information provided is so thorough that it would be easy to any reader to become overloaded and bored under the care of a less skilled writer. thankfully, kory stamper is as skilled as she is curious. the comedic tone really helps to propel the vast information being relayed here (and as a person who thrives in a trivia-based environment, this book is going to do wonders for my bar trivia team). if you're a fan of benjamin dreyer, you'll likely be the correct audience for this book.

one of my favorite nonfiction reads of all time is the secret lives of color by kassia st. clair, so when i saw true color i (mistakenly) assumed that it would be in line with that book's general approach and purpose -- telling the stories of the colors themselves. i didn't realize what i'd actually gotten myself into was the deepest trenches of lexicography, dictionary creation, and one very particular man's history. while i'm glad i got through it, i really was longing for something else. i now know much more about a ton of topics i didn't expect, but i think the best bits were the ones that actually told the color history stories that i was hoping for -- among others, that margarine bit was gold (*insert snare drum here*).

thank you to knopf for giving me an advanced copy for this book in exchange for an honest review!

[Candy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for an advance copy of this book in return for an honest review.

My expectation was “a kaleidoscopic journey through the secret history of hues—and the story of the obsessive genius behind the definitions of colors.” Instead the book focuses much more on the lexicography when writing (rewriting?) Webster’s Third New International Dictionary. The story is much more about the people, process and office politics driving that rather than an exploration into the world of color. The author seems to have been sidetracked into color science, color psychology and color production as they are examined in depth. There are some interesting sections, such as how descriptions in the U.S. Pharmacopeia could be the difference between life and death. Confusing descriptions, and similar-sounding names, could lead to a pharmacist grabbing the wrong bottle.

After reading the entire book, I still don’t know what “bluer than fiesta” signifies or why the color “duckling” is not the soft lemony yellow of newly hatched ducklings but is a dark, saturated blue.

The impertinent and humorous writing style is amusing at first, but quickly the snarkiness becomes overused and loses its edge (although I would like to know what was meant by “her hair as busy as birds”).

https://candysplanet.wordpress.com/

[Kym · Rating 3 out of 5]

As a (mostly) self-taught artist, I’ve always been intrigued by color – in theory, in practice, and just playing around with it. So I was eager to read Kory Stamper’s True Color, her soon-to-be-published (March 31, 2026; Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage, and Anchor) deep dive into . . . color.

But - surprise - that's not really what it is.

It IS a deep dive, surely -- a dense and detailed deep dive into the naming of color and the making/editing of dictionaries, with quite a bit of (maybe too much?) behind-the-scenes 1940s Merriam-Webster employment drama. Interesting. Certainly very well researched. But just . . . not what I was expecting. The minutiae wore me down, actually, and I needed to do a lot of skimming for final half of the book. (The epilogue is wonderful, though.)

I’m afraid I was not the “right” reader for this book. I appreciate the research and effort Kory Stamper put into this volume, and for readers interested in lexicography (but not necessarily color theory), this book will be your nirvana.

The cover is really wonderful.

Thank you to Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage, and Anchor and to NetGalley for providing me with an advance copy of Kory Stamper’s True Color in exchange for my honest review. This book will be published on March 31, 2026.

3 stars.

[Annie · Rating 3 out of 5]

true color is a kaleidoscopic exploration of the history of color definitions, shedding light on the little-known minutiae of perception and language.

I love design, I'm a photographer and painter, hues and cues is my favorite board game, and have a copy of the color bible on my bookshelf - color is everything to me and I love the subtle differences between shades. I'm also a reader and love the pursuit of knowledge for the sake of knowledge - which is why this book sounded right up my alley.

unfortunately, this is less about the history of color names, and more about office politics and the procedurals of compiling and writing a dictionary. though I was intrigued in the first half, and the writing was informative with a strong narrative voice and side of humor, it started to drag about a quarter of the way through.

I did enjoy the epilogue and the spotlight on women's contributions, and think this book is good for what it is - more of a focus on lexicographers and the immense detail of dictionary definitions, especially with something hard to define - and less about the history of color names itself.

overall, while I wanted to love this one, it just wasn't for me, and wish I had a better understanding of what the book was truly about before I picked it up (which is on me).

thank you to the publisher and netgalley for an advance copy of this book.

3.5/5

[Caroline · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was not about color. Let's just get that out there right now. Color disappeared from the story for whole chapters at a time. This book was about lexicography, with color as the recurring example of how lexicography works, or doesn't. There was more about the creation of Webster's Third Unabridged dictionary than about color. The blurb said something about the genius who defined colors for the dictionary, but if that refers to I. H. Godlove, he died halfway through the book, and anyway he was not as present as some of the major figures at Merriam Webster while the dictionary was being compiled.

There were interesting nuggets about how color has been standardized in fashion, printing, paint formulation, and so on, and occasionally we'd get to see a contested definition for a color, but on the whole I wouldn't suggest reading this book unless it's the WORDS for colors that interest you.

Stamper gives a very good idea of what it's like to work on creating a dictionary, and recovers the labor of women scientists in the field of color during the 20th century. Her writing style is entertaining. Just be prepared for what you will and won't find in this book.

Thanks to NetGalley for letting me read an advance copy of this book.

[Jeffrey · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thoroughly enjoyed, and learned quite a lot from Kory Stamper's "Word by Word: The Secret Life of Dictionaries." So I was particularly pleased to get a copy of her new book, "True Color: The Strange and Spectacular Quest to Define Color - from Azure to Zinc Pink." It didn't disappoint. Stamper has a talkent for making the technical clear (within limits, I have to acknowledge) and to do so charmingly.

Color science, if you've never considered it (as I have not) is complex and multi-disciplinary. Colors of natural light, paint, textiles, and more are necessarily calibrated and created differently. And the thousands of shades are, at some level, all distinct visually, scientifically, chemically, and as especially relevant here, definitionally. From deep in the weeds of Merriam Webster where lexicographers are struggling to compile "Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language - Unabridged," she brings to life the lexicographers, editors, and expert consultants who worked tirelessly - in one case worked himself to death - on the task. And she does it with a light touch and down-to-earth style.

I never thought I'd find color fascinating. I was wrong.

[Rachel Roberson · Rating 5 out of 5]

How do I love Kory Stamper? Let me count the ways! 1) If you have not yet read her "Word by Word" you are in for such a treat. Go quickly to your library or bookseller and procure immediately! 2) Her latest on the puzzle of defining color was the same mix of nerdy lexicography, lol turns of phrase, word history and, in this case, a big dose of science, which she makes legible for the general audience. As a former Merriam Webster editor, she grounds this book in the history of the two defining (see what I did there) unabridged MW dictionaries of the 20th century, the 2nd and the 3rd. Each massive tome defined color differently in ways that boggle the mind, and Stamper is right there with the citations from those analog days: inter-office memos, business correspondence, meeting minutes, professional journals, marginalia and even some interviews with still-living relatives of the principle personages. If you've ever wondered how color gets defined without, well, using the name of the color, this is the book for you. Even if such a thought has never crossed your mind, but you love words and the way the world works, this is also the book for you! Highly recommended if any of this sounds interesting!

[Christine Craft · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a fascinating read! As a fan of the author's debut book, I was excited to read more niche history related to lexicographers. True Color: The Strange and Spectacular Quest to Define Color—from Azure to Zinc Pink by Kory Stamper is all about defining color, the history of its impact on the globe, the major figures involved, and the making of the Merriam-Webster 3rd edition, which surprisingly includes some workplace drama I wasn’t expecting.

True Colors was well-written, informative, and extensively researched. I liked that the colors were organized into single chapters and examined by how they were defined, impacted the world, or revealed in the disputes they caused. I enjoyed reading the author’s witty footnotes, as they paired well with some of the dense history parts. I also appreciated the occasional graphics, as they added visuals to the learning experience.

Overall, I enjoyed this book! It was an interesting read, and I loved the deep dive into the history of it all. I’d recommend this book for anyone intrigued by the subject matter.

Thank you to NetGalley and Knopf for the advance copy of this book in return for an honest review.

[Jessica Samuelson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Every wonder how one defines a color with mere words?

This nonfiction microhistory explores the people and methods behind the color definitions found in Webster’s Third New International Dictionary, which was published in 1961. The author herself is trained as a lexicographer and has written many dictionary definitions for Merriam-Webster. Her personal experience gave helpful insight into how dictionary writing usually works and why the color definitions in The Third are so unique.

Some of the topics that stood out most to me included the National Bureau of Standard’s earlier efforts to standardize color, the role of color names in fashion sales, DuPont, I.H. Godlove, Emma Margaret Noss, the Inter-Society Color Council, the American Heritage Dictionary, the Munsell Book of Color, and the unusual niche that color provided for women in science in the mid-20th century.

Each chapter title includes some sort of nod to color, which I thought was a nice touch.

Thank you to Knopf for an Advanced Reader Copy.