Colours and Their Feminine and Plural Forms | Hebrew Grammar

In English a colour is a fixed word: a red shirt, red shirts, a red door. In Hebrew a colour is an ordinary adjective, so it copies the noun's gender and number like any other — and it does that by rebuilding its own stem, not by taking a suffix. אָדוֹם does not become אדומ+ה; it becomes אֲדוּמָּה, with the first vowel reduced and the middle one replaced. Get that wrong and everyone still understands you, which is exactly why it survives for years.

The eleven everyday colours

Colour	m. sg	f. sg	m. pl	f. pl
white	לָבָן laván	לְבָנָה levaná	לְבָנִים levaním	לְבָנוֹת levanót
black	שָׁחוֹר shakhór	שְׁחוֹרָה shkhorá	שְׁחוֹרִים shkhorím	שְׁחוֹרוֹת shkhorót
red	אָדוֹם adóm	אֲדוּמָּה adumá	אֲדוּמִּים adumím	אֲדוּמּוֹת adumót
green	יָרוֹק yarók	יְרוּקָּה yeruká	יְרוּקִּים yerukím	יְרוּקּוֹת yerukót
blue	כָּחוֹל kakhól	כְּחוּלָּה kkhulá	כְּחוּלִּים kkhulím	כְּחוּלּוֹת kkhulót
yellow	צָהוֹב tsahóv	צְהוּבָּה tsehubá	צְהוּבִּים tsehubím	צְהוּבּוֹת tsehubót
brown	חוּם khum	חוּמָה khumá	חוּמִים khumím	חוּמוֹת khumót
pink	וָרוֹד varód	וְרוּדָּה vrudá	וְרוּדִּים vrudím	וְרוּדּוֹת vrudót
grey	אָפוֹר afór	אֲפוֹרָה aforá	אֲפוֹרִים aforím	אֲפוֹרוֹת aforót
orange	כָּתוֹם katóm	כְּתוּמָּה ktumá	כְּתוּמִּים ktumím	כְּתוּמּוֹת ktumót
purple	סָגוֹל sagól	סְגוּלָּה segulá	סְגוּלִּים segulím	סְגוּלּוֹת segulót

Dictionaries print most of these with a bare cholam — אָדֹם, שָׁחֹר, כָּתֹם — where the guide, following ktiv male, writes a vav. Same words, two spellings; the mould behind them and the reason the vowels move are on patterns for illnesses and colours.

השמלה האדומה הזאת יקרה מדי, יש אותה בשחור?

hasimlá ha'adumá hazót yekará midái, yesh otá beshakhór?

This red dress is too expensive — do you have it in black?

קניתי שתי חולצות לבנות לילדים.

kaníti shtei khultsót levanót layeladím

I bought two white shirts for the kids.

העלים כבר לא ירוקים, הסתיו התחיל.

he'alím kvar lo yerukím, hastáv hitkhíl

The leaves aren't green any more — autumn's started.

יש לה עיניים חומות כמו של אבא שלה.

yesh la eináyim khumót kmo shel ába shelá

She's got brown eyes, like her dad's.

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The masculine singular is the form the dictionary gives you and very nearly the one you will need least. Most of the everyday nouns people actually attach a colour to are feminine — חולצה, שמלה, חצאית, מכונית, דלת, ספה, כוס — so אדומה, שחורה, כחולה are the working forms, and אדום is mostly what you say when there is no noun at all. Learn each colour from its feminine and you will be quicker in a shop.

Three behaviours, not one

Look down the feminine column and you will see the set is not uniform. Learn one colour and generalise, and you will be wrong about most of the others.

לבן just reduces. The first a thins to nothing and everything else stays: laván → levaná, levaním, levanót. This is the ordinary stem change you already know from גדול and חדש.
Most of them swap the vowel too. אדום, ירוק, כחול, צהוב, ורוד, כתום and סגול reduce the first vowel and turn the o into a u: adóm → adumá, yarók → yeruká, katóm → ktumá. Nothing was added — the word was re-poured.
שחור and אפור keep their o. shakhór → shkhorá, afór → aforá, never *shkhurá. Their third root letter is ר, and ר is the one letter that refuses the doubling the u depends on.
חום does nothing at all. It is one syllable with no vowel to move, so it behaves like an ordinary word: khum, khumá, khumím, khumót.

That last group is the friendly one, and it is where the borrowed colours live too. בז׳ bezh, טורקיז turkíz, לילך lilákh and בורדו bordó are used exactly as they stand, one form for every noun, so a beige dress and beige shoes take the same word. Note the mark on בז׳: that is a Hebrew geresh, not an apostrophe, and it is what makes the ז read zh.

היא קנתה שמלה בז׳ וז׳קט שחור.

hi kantá simlá bezh vezhakét shakhór

She bought a beige dress and a black jacket. (בז׳ never changes; שחור does)

When the colour has a shade attached

Colours rarely travel alone. Put a shade word after one and it is a second adjective, so it agrees too — with the noun, not with the colour.

בָּהִיר bahír light, pale — feminine בהירה behirá
כֵּהֶה kehé dark — feminine כהה kehá, spelled identically and pronounced differently, like every ־ֶה adjective
עַז az vivid, intense — feminine עזה azá

So a light blue shirt is חולצה כחולה בהירה: three words, three feminine endings, none of them optional. When two adjectives stack like this the article repeats as well, which is multiple adjectives' problem.

היא לבשה חולצה כחולה בהירה וחצאית כהה.

hi lavshá khultsá kkhulá behirá vakhatsa'ít kehá

She was wearing a light blue shirt and a dark skirt. (both adjectives feminine, both times)

צבעו את הקיר בירוק כהה, קצת כבד לחדר קטן.

tsav'ú et hakír beyarók kehé, ktsat kavéd lekhéder katán

They painted the wall dark green — a bit heavy for a small room. (here ירוק is a bare noun, so כהה is masculine)

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כהה is the one word in this corner of the language whose two singulars are the same string: הקיר כהה is kehé and הדלת כהה is kehá. Nothing in כהה tells you which — the colour or the noun in front of it does. That is the ־ֶה class doing what it always does, and it is why the shade word is the one to check twice.

Every colour is also a noun

A colour word with no noun in front of it simply is the colour, and behaves as a masculine noun: הצבע האדום the colour red, אני אוהב כחול I like blue, בשחור in black. This is why the second example above has כהה in the masculine — ירוק there is not describing anything, it is the name of a paint.

אני אוהב כחול, אבל לא על הקירות.

aní ohév kakhól, avál lo al hakirót

I like blue, just not on the walls. (m. speaker — the bare colour word is a noun here)

תכלת is not a shade of כחול

English has one basic blue and calls everything else light blue or sky blue. Hebrew has two words at the same level: כָּחוֹל kakhól and תְּכֵלֶת tkhélet, the pale blue of a clear sky. An Israeli does not experience תכלת as a kind of כחול any more than an English speaker experiences pink as a kind of red.

The word carries a lot of history for a colour term. It is Biblical: the thread commanded for the corner-fringes of a garment is a פְּתִיל תְּכֵלֶת (Numbers 15:38). And the 1948 proclamation of the Israeli flag describes the stripes as שני פסי תכלת כהה, and the Star of David as שישה פסי תכלת — not כחול anywhere in it.

Grammatically תכלת is a noun, and as a colour word it does not inflect: שמלה תכלת, עיניים תכלת. There is a proper adjective beside it, תָּכוֹל takhól, with the ordinary forms תכולה, תכולים, תכולות — but it belongs to poetry and song rather than to a shop, and עיניים תכולות is the phrase you are most likely to meet it in.

בשירים הישנים תמיד מופיעות עיניים תכולות.

bashirím hayeshaním tamíd mofi'ót eináyim tkhulót

Pale blue eyes turn up in all the old songs. (literary — תכול is the adjective built from תכלת)

Common Mistakes

1. Inflecting the noun and leaving the colour bare. English never inflects a colour, so the hand stops after the noun.

❌ קניתי נעליים שחור

Incorrect — נעליים is feminine plural, so the colour must be too: קניתי נעליים שחורות.

✅ קניתי נעליים שחורות כי הכול מתלכלך פה.

kaníti na'aláyim shkhorót ki hakól mitlakhlékh po

I bought black shoes because everything gets filthy here.

2. Keeping the full first vowel. You see לבנים on the page, you have just said laván, and you say labaním. Nothing about the spelling warns you, because the vowel that disappeared was never written.

❌ לבנים

labaním

Incorrect — the first vowel reduces once an ending is added: levaním, and likewise levaná and levanót.

✅ הקירות לבנים והרצפה אפורה.

hakirót levaním veharitspá aforá

The walls are white and the floor is grey.

3. Inflecting a borrowed colour. Having learned that colours agree, you apply it to the ones that cannot.

❌ קיר בז׳ה

Incorrect — בז׳ is a borrowed colour and has exactly one form: קיר בז׳, שמלה בז׳, נעליים בז׳. The same goes for טורקיז and לילך.

✅ הקירות בז׳ והדלתות לבנות.

hakirót bezh vehadlatót levanót

The walls are beige and the doors are white. (one word inflects, one cannot)

4. Agreeing the colour and forgetting the shade. The colour is the word you were concentrating on, so the second adjective slips through unchanged.

❌ לקחתי את החולצה הכחולה בהיר

Incorrect — בהיר is a second adjective describing the same noun, so it agrees and repeats the article: החולצה הכחולה הבהירה.

✅ לקחתי את החולצה הכחולה הבהירה, היא יותר מתאימה לקיץ.

lakákhti et hakhultsá hakkhulá habehirá, hi yotér mat'imá lakáyits

I took the light blue shirt — it goes better with summer.

Key Takeaways

Colours are ordinary adjectives and take all four forms: לבן · לבנה · לבנים · לבנות.
They inflect by rebuilding the stem, not by adding an ending: אָדוֹם → אֲדוּמָּה, יָרוֹק → יְרוּקָּה, כָּתוֹם → כְּתוּמָּה. The o becomes a u.
שחור and אפור keep their o — shkhorá, aforá, never shkhurá — because their last root letter is ר.
חום is invariant in its stem (חומה, חומים, חומות), and the borrowed colours בז׳, טורקיז, לילך, בורדו are used in one form whatever the noun.
A shade word is a second adjective and agrees on its own: חולצה כחולה בהירה, שמלה אדומה עזה. כהה is a ־ֶה adjective, so its masculine and feminine are spelled alike.
Every colour word doubles as a masculine noun: אני אוהב כחול, הצבע האדום, בשחור.
תכלת is a separate basic colour, not a shade of כחול — Biblical (פתיל תכלת, Numbers 15:38) and the colour named in the 1948 flag proclamation. It does not inflect; the poetic adjective beside it is תכול.

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