Chestnut (color)

For other uses, see Chestnut (disambiguation).

Chestnut, also known as Indian red, is a color, a medium brownish shade of red, and is named after the nut of the chestnut tree.

As Indian red, it is named after the red laterite soil found in India.^{[dubious – discuss]} It is thus an earth tone as well as a red. It is composed of naturally occurring iron oxides. Other shades of iron oxides include Venetian Red and English Red. It is used as an adjective in the names of several birds to describe their plumage.

Chestnut

Chestnut
— Color coordinates —
Hex triplet		#954535
RGBB	(r, g, b)	(149, 69, 53)
HSV	(h, s, v)	(10°, 54%, 68%)
Source		X11
B: Normalized to [0–255] (byte)

Displayed at right is the color chestnut, also known as the web color Indian red.

Chestnuts can be found on the ground around chestnut trees.

Chestnut-backed Chickadee

Etymology

The name Chestnut derives from the color of the nut of the Chestnut tree. The first recorded use of chestnut as a color term in English was in 1555.^[1]

The name Indian red derives from the red laterite soil found in India, which is composed of naturally occurring iron oxides. The first recorded use of Indian red as a color term in English was in 1792.^[2]

Chestnut (crayola)

Chestnut
— Color coordinates —
Hex triplet		#B94E48
RGBB	(r, g, b)	(185, 78, 72)
HSV	(h, s, v)	(10°, 50%, 75%)
Source		Crayola
B: Normalized to [0–255] (byte)

Displayed at right is the color called chestnut in Crayola crayons. This color was also produced in a special limited edition in which it was called Vermont maple syrup.

At the request of educators worried that children (mistakenly) believed the name represented the skin color of Native Americans, Crayola changed the name of their crayon color Indian Red to Chestnut in 1999.^[3] The actual skin color of pure-blooded Native Americans is closest to the color copper.^[4]

See also

• List of colors
• Chestnut (coat)—Chestnut-coated horses
• Chestnut hair

References

1. ^ Mish, Frederic C., Editor in Chief Webster's Tenth New Collegiate Dictionary Springfield, Massachuetts, U.S.A.:1994--Merriam-Webster Page 197
2. ^ Mish, Frederic C., Editor in Chief Webster's Tenth New Collegiate Dictionary Springfield, Massachuetts, U.S.A.:1994--Merriam-Webster Page 592
3. ^ Crayon Chronology
4. ^ See: Rand McNally’s World Atlas International Edition Chicago:1944 Rand McNally--Map: "Races of Mankind" Pages 278-279--In the explanatory section below the map, the American Indian Race is described as being "copper-colored"