COLORS IN UKRAINIAN: A WALK THROUGH AN AUTUMN PARK

Now imagine this: you’re walking in a Ukrainian park in November. The air is crisp, someone nearby feeds pigeons, and the leaves are throwing a color party.

Forget boring “red, yellow, green.” Ukrainian has dozens of color words — and many of them sound like poetry or desserts. Seriously, try saying orange-yellow (жовтогарячий).

The trees are glowing: golden (золотий), honey-colored (медовий), even amber (бурштиновий) — like jewelry from your grandma’s box. Some leaves are raspberry-red (малиновий), others are burgundy (бордовий).

A few brave green ones — emerald (смарагдовий) or olive (оливковий) — are still pretending it’s summer. And the sky? Pure sky blue (небесно-блакитний) perfection.

Welcome to Ukrainian — where every color tells a story.

Idioms with colors

And Ukrainians love idioms with colors — here are a few to make your speech sparkle:

золота осінь — golden autumn

золоте серце — a kind heart

чорний день — a bad or unlucky day

біла заздрість — pure, harmless envy

рожеві окуляри — rose-colored glasses (being overly optimistic)

From nouns to adjectives: turning objects into colors

In Ukrainian, many color words come directly from nouns — usually things from nature, food, or materials.

Here are a few examples:

золото → золотий (gold → golden)

мед → медовий (honey → honey-colored)

вишня → вишневий (cherry → cherry-colored)

смарагд → смарагдовий (emerald → emerald-green)

пісок → пісочний (sand → sandy)

Grammar tip:

Most of these adjectives end in -овий / -евий, which is a typical ending for adjectives formed from nouns.

That’s one of the reasons Ukrainian colors sound so poetic — they’re deeply connected to nature and everyday life.

Ukrainian loves compound colors

Ukrainians don’t stop at simple colors — the love to mix and match!

You’ll often hear compound adjectives, formed by combining two color roots. They describe those in-between shades that don’t fit neatly into one box.

Examples:

жовтогарячий — literally yellow-hot, meaning orange

небесно-блакитний — sky-blue

сіро-зелений — gray-green

Usually, the first part describes a hue, and the second part is the main color.

Examples:

небесно-блакитний (небесно + блакитний) = “sky-blue”

темно-зелений (темно + зелений) = “dark green”

This structure makes Ukrainian color words flexible and expressive — you can say світло-рожевий (light pink), темно-червоний (dark red), or even синьо-жовтий (blue-yellow) — the colors of the Ukrainian flag, a combination every Ukrainian knows well.

Here are the colors you might encounter:

Shades of passion — red tones

Golden light — yellow and warm tones

Nature’s calm — green tones

Sky and sea — blue and cool tones

Tiny Ukrainian challenge

Next time you’re in the park, pick a leaf and try to describe it using Ukrainian colors.

If someone stares — just say you’re doing linguistic art.