off-color

Questions about off-color

What does off-color mean?

off-color means "in violation of good taste even verging on the indecent". That is the primary sense; the word has 2 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in off-color?

off-color has 3 syllables and divides as off--co-lor under the regular spelling rules. It is not in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary, so that comes from how the word is written rather than from a recorded pronunciation, and no stress or phonetic transcription is claimed for it.

What is another word for off-color?

Close synonyms include indelicate, off-colour, bawdy, ribald. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is off-color a common word?

off-color is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.