off-color

English

Alternative forms

• off-colour

Pronunciation

• Audio (General Australian):

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Adjective

off-color (comparative more off-color, superlative most off-color)

1. Of the wrong color.
   • 1936, Chemical Industries, volume 38, page 400:

     Careful control of mixing at the central point reduces the possibility of off-color paint in some booths, and uniform pressure at the spray guns is easily maintained.

   • 2000, John Kenkel, Chemistry: An Industry-Based Laboratory Manual, page 74:

     Because of his reputable work with off-color and contaminated materials, I have asked Dr. Otto Speck of Colorama Consultants to give us some direction.

   • 2001, SPE/ANTEC 2001 Proceedings, page 3391:

     After some amount of time elapses, the transition phase from color A to color B will yield off-color product until the color change for color B is fully established in the system.

2. (idiomatic) Dirty, vulgar or obscene, especially in a way that is unpleasant.

   He told an off-color joke.

   • 1996, James Lambert, The Macquarie Book of Slang, Sydney: Macquarie Library, page xii:

     [T]he equating of the female genitalia with a wound caused by an axe is a very off-colour metaphor.

   • 2010, Charles Carver, Brann and the Iconoclast, page 54:

     He seems to have crawled off the earth after his Texas itinerary, in company with the alleged ex-nun whom he was carting around the country to pander to the prurient appetites of off-color dames by relating naughty tales of desiring nuns and accommodating priests.

   • 2012, Gary L. Fanning, Things I Didn't Learn in Medical School:

     Overly risqué jokes and foul language are invitations to being charged with sexual abuse. I must admit to enjoying humor a great deal, and I am guilty of sharing all kinds of stories, some of which are slightly off-color, but far from lewd.

3. (idiomatic) Different than usual.
   • 2007, Kevin Courrier, Captain Beefheart's Trout Mask Replica:

     Since Zappa treats subject matter, dialogue, and song as musical material, Permanent Damage has a casual off-color quality. Permanent Damage and An Evening with Wild Man Fischer were works of oddball sociology as much as they were rock and roll records.

   • 2014, Anne W. Mhorelund, Broken Branch: The Patchie Creek Story, page 691:

     Even the roadside sights seemed a little off-color and was just beginning to lose some of its summer luster.

   • 2015, Kristi Charish, Owl and the Japanese Circus, page 162:

     There was something funny about his eyes . . . something off-color and old . . . but he pulled the shades back down before I could get a good look.

4. (idiomatic) Feeling mildly unwell.

   Synonym: under the weather

   I feel a bit off-color today.

   • 2009, Kalpana M. Naghnoor, Abstruse, page 111:

     Nihal Sheshan, one of our officers, tells me our chief has been a little off-color of late. Kind of disoriented sometimes.

   • 2010, Murray Stein, Jungian Psychoanalysis: Working in the Spirit of Carl Jung, page 311:

     One evening she was feeling off-color with a virus and was settled comfortably in the sitting-room.

Translations

of the wrong color

• German: farblich abweichend
• Hungarian: színhibás, elszíneződött (hu), színehagyott (hu), kifakult (hu), fakó (hu)
• Latin: dēcolor

dirty, vulgar or obscene, especially in a way that is unpleasant

• German: dreckig (de), schmutzig (de), frivol (de), schlüpfrig (de)
• Hungarian: szalonképtelen (hu), illetlen (hu), ízléstelen (hu), malac (hu), sikamlós (hu), pikáns (hu), frivol (hu), obszcén (hu)

different than usual

• German: aus dem Rahmen fallend, nicht alltäglich, unkonventionell (de) (exalted)

feeling mildly unwell

• German: unwohl (de), angeschlagen (de), flau (de)
• Hungarian: gyengélkedő (hu), rossz állapotban/bőrben/színben lévő
• Irish: drochshnóch
• Polish: niedysponowany