credit to u/theromancrow for this great image :)
Regarding the two terms for black, note that they are only partially interchangeable:
- āter (dull black) - more like an object covered in soot
- niger (shining black) - more like a black dog or cat, with a really lustrous fur
Same deal with albus (dull white) and candidus (shining white). In fact candidus is related to candeō "I shine".
Don't be surprised if you see 9001 names for the same colour. A lot of those are actually hues, named after some object with that colour + -eus (the noun→adjective suffix). For example, grey can be also "cinereus" (ash-coloured) or plumbeus (lead-coloured). (It could be also "glaucus", if it's a bluish~greenish one. Obvious Greek borrowing.)
I'm not sure if I'd call lūteus "orange" or "yellow". The name is a reference to this plant, used for dyeing:
Either way, the long vowel here is damn important. Lūteus [u:] is that colour; while luteus [ʊ] is "muddy, filthy". It's that sort of word that you could use in Rome to pick a fight against someone.
If referring to hair colour, rutilus works nicely for red hair.
Note that as typical for Latin adjectives, all of those change depending on grammatical gender and case. But it's easy:
- if the noun is feminine, sub that -us with -a then treat the adjective as a 1st declension noun; e.g. "res est caerulea" (the thing is blue)
- if the noun is masculine or neuter, just treat it as a 2nd declension noun; e.g. "Claudius capillōs rutilōs habet" (Claudius has orange hairs).
The ones ending in -er typically lose the -e- when you get another vowel after it; e.g. ruber → rubra, rubrum, rubrōs etc.