Yellow

Yellow is the

Because it was widely available,

According to surveys in Europe, Canada, the United States and elsewhere, yellow is the color people most often associate with amusement, gentleness, humor, happiness, and spontaneity; however it can also be associated with duplicity, envy, jealousy, greed, and, in the U.S., cowardice.[6] In Iran it has connotations of pallor/sickness,^[7] but also wisdom and connection.^[8] In China and many Asian countries, it is seen as the color of happiness, glory, harmony and wisdom.^[9]

Etymology

The word yellow is from the

The English term is related to other Germanic words for yellow, namely Scots yella, East Frisian jeel, West Frisian giel, Dutch geel, German gelb, and Swedish and Norwegian gul.^[11] According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the oldest known use of this word in English is from The Epinal Glossary in 700.^[12]

Science and nature

Optics, color printing, and computer screens

• 
  Color printing typically uses ink of four colors: cyan, magenta, yellow, and key(black). When CMY "primaries" are combined at full strength, the resulting "secondary" mixtures are red, green, and blue.
• 
  Mixing all three theoretically results in black, but imperfect ink formulations do not give true black, which is why an additional K component is needed.
• 
  An example of color printing from 1902. Combining images in yellow, magenta and cyan creates a full-color picture. This is called the CMYK color model.
• 
  On a computer display, yellow is created by combining green and red light at the right intensity on a black screen.

Yellow is found between green and red on the spectrum of visible light. It is the color the human eye sees when it looks at light with a dominant wavelength between 570 and 590 nanometers.

In color printing, yellow is one of the three subtractive primary colors of ink along with magenta and cyan. Together with black, they can be overlaid in the right combination to print any full color image. (See the CMYK color model). A particular yellow is used, called Process yellow (also known as "pigment yellow", "printer's yellow", and "canary yellow"). Process yellow is not an RGB color, and there is no fixed conversion from CMYK primaries to RGB. Different formulations are used for printer's ink, so there can be variations in the printed color that is pure yellow ink.

The yellow on a color television or computer screen is created in a completely different way; by combining green and red light at the right level of intensity. (See RGB color model).

Complementary colors

Traditionally, the complementary color of yellow is purple; the two colors are opposite each other on the color wheel long used by painters.^[13] Vincent van Gogh, an avid student of color theory, used combinations of yellow and purple in several of his paintings for the maximum contrast and harmony.^[14]

Hunt defines that "two colors are complementary when it is possible to reproduce the tristimulus values of a specified achromatic stimulus by an additive mixture of these two stimuli."

Because of the characteristics of paint pigments and use of different color wheels, painters traditionally regard the complement of yellow as the color indigo or blue-violet.

Lasers

Lasers emitting in the yellow part of the spectrum are less common and more expensive than most other colors.^[18] In commercial products diode pumped solid state (DPSS) technology is employed to create the yellow light. An infrared laser diode at 808 nm is used to pump a crystal of neodymium-doped yttrium vanadium oxide (Nd:YVO4) or neodymium-doped yttrium aluminum garnet (Nd:YAG) and induces it to emit at two frequencies (281.76 THz and 223.39 THz: 1064 nm and 1342 nm wavelengths) simultaneously. This deeper infrared light is then passed through another crystal containing potassium, titanium and phosphorus (KTP), whose non-linear properties generate light at a frequency that is the sum of the two incident beams (505.15 THz); in this case corresponding to the wavelength of 593.5 nm ("yellow").^[19] This wavelength is also available, though even more rarely, from a helium–neon laser. However, this not a true yellow, as it exceeds 590 nm. A variant of this same DPSS technology using slightly different starting frequencies was made available in 2010, producing a wavelength of 589 nm, which is considered a true yellow color.^[20] The use of yellow lasers at 589 nm and 594 nm have recently become more widespread thanks to the field of optogenetics.^[21]

Astronomy

Stars of spectral classes F and G have color temperatures that make them look "yellowish".^[22] The first astronomer to classify stars according to their color was F. G. W. Struve in 1827. One of his classifications was flavae, or yellow, and this roughly corresponded to stars in the modern spectral range F5 to K0.^[23] The Strömgren photometric system for stellar classification includes a 'y' or yellow filter that is centered at a wavelength of 550 nm and has a bandwidth of 20–30 nm.^[24][25]

In late summer, as daylight hours shorten and temperatures cool, the veins that carry fluids into and out of the leaf are gradually closed off. The water and mineral intake into the leaf is reduced, slowly at first, and then more rapidly. It is during this time that the chlorophyll begins to decrease. As the chlorophyll diminishes, the yellow and red carotenoids become more and more visible, creating the classic autumn leaf color.

Carotenoids are common in many living things; they give the characteristic color to carrots, maize,

• 
  Autumn colors along the

  Anchorage, Alaska
• 
  Daffodils

  in Cornwall
• 
  carotenoids

  .
• 
  The yolk of a raw egg. The color comes from the xanthophyll carotenoids lutein and zeaxanthin
• 
  Duckling chicks

Fish

• Yellowtail is the common name for dozens of different fish species that have yellow tails or a yellow body. Most of the time, yellowtail(fish) actually refers to Japanese amberjack, a fish that lives between Japan and Hawaii.
• anal and second dorsal fins. Found in tropical and subtropical seas and weighing up to 200 kg (440 lb), it is caught as a replacement for depleted stocks of bluefin tuna
  .
• ray-finned fish in the genus Labeobarbus
  . It has become an invasive species in rivers of the Eastern Cape, South Africa, such as the Mbhashe River.

• The
  yellow-fever mosquito (Aedes aegypti) is a mosquito so named because it transmits dengue fever and yellow fever
  , the mosquito-borne viruses.
• bald-faced hornet, Dolichovespula maculata). They can be identified by their distinctive black-and-yellow color, small size (slightly larger than a bee), and entirely black antennae
  .

• Populus tremuloides is a deciduous tree native to cooler areas of North America, one of several species referred to by the common name aspen. Populus tremuloides is the most widely distributed tree in North America, being found from Canada to central Mexico.
• The
  yellow birch (Betula alleghaniensis) is a birch species native to eastern North America, from Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and southern Quebec west to Minnesota, and south in the Appalachian Mountains to northern Georgia. They are medium-sized deciduous trees and can reach about 20 m (66 ft) tall, trunks up to 80 cm (31 in) in diameter. The bark is smooth and yellow-bronze,^[27]
  and the wood is extensively used for flooring, cabinetry, and toothpicks.
• The
  Thorny Yellowwood
  is an Australian rainforest tree which has deep yellow wood.
• tuliptree
  . The common name is inaccurate as this genus is not related to poplars.
• The Handroanthus albus is a tree with yellow flowers native to the Cerrado of Brazil.

History, art, and fashion

Prehistory

Yellow, in the form of

In Ancient Egypt, yellow was associated with gold, which was considered to be imperishable, eternal and indestructible. The skin and bones of the gods were believed to be made of gold. The Egyptians used yellow extensively in tomb paintings; they usually used either yellow ochre or the brilliant orpiment, though it was made of arsenic and was highly toxic. A small paintbox with orpiment pigment was found in the tomb of King Tutankhamun. Men were always shown with brown faces, women with yellow ochre or gold faces.^[4]

The ancient Romans used yellow in their paintings to represent gold and also in skin tones. It is found frequently in the murals of Pompeii.

• 
  Image of a horse colored with

  yellow ochre from Lascaux

  cave.
• 
  Paintings in the Tomb of Nakht in ancient Egypt (15th century BC).
• 
  Yellow ochre was often used in wall paintings in Ancient Roman villas and towns.
• 
  Justinian from the Basilica of San Vitale in Ravenna

  , Italy (before 547 AD).
• 
  The flag of the

  Paleologus dynasty

  of Byzantine emperors was red and gold.

Post-classical history

During the Post-Classical period, yellow became firmly established as the color of

The tradition started in the Renaissance of marking non-Christian outsiders, such as Jews, with the color yellow. In 16th-century Spain, those accused of heresy and who refused to renounce their views were compelled to come before the Spanish Inquisition dressed in a yellow cape.^[28]

The color yellow has been historically associated with moneylenders and finance. The

• 
  Saffron was sometimes used as a pigment in Medieval manuscripts, such as this page showing the murder of Thomas Becket at Canterbury Cathedral, c. 1200
• 
  The Kiss of Judas (1304–06) by

  Giotto di Bondone, followed the Medieval tradition of clothing Judas Iscariot

  in a yellow toga.
• 
  Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester (1560–1565)
• 
  Young Man in a Yellow Robe Jan Lievens, c. 1630–1631
• 
  The Milkmaid by Johannes Vermeer, c.1658

Modern history

18th and 19th centuries

The 18th and 19th century saw the discovery and manufacture of synthetic pigments and dyes, which quickly replaced the traditional yellows made from arsenic, cow urine, and other substances.

c. 1776, Jean-Honoré Fragonard painted A Young Girl Reading. She is dressed in a bright saffron yellow dress. This painting is "considered by many critics to be among Fragonard's most appealing and masterly".^[30]

The 19th-century British painter J. M. W. Turner was one of the first in that century to use yellow to create moods and emotions, the way romantic composers were using music. His painting Rain, Steam, and Speed – the Great Central Railway was dominated by glowing yellow clouds.

Georges Seurat used the new synthetic colors in his experimental paintings composed of tiny points of primary colors, particularly in his famous Sunday Afternoon on the Isle de la Grand jatte (1884–86). He did not know that the new synthetic yellow pigment, zinc yellow or zinc chromate, which he used in the light green lawns, was highly unstable and would quickly turn brown.^[31]

The painter

• 
  A Young Girl Reading, or The Reader. Jean-Honoré Fragonard, c. 1776, 32" x 25 1/2" National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
• 
  Rain, Steam and Speed – The Great Western Railway. (1844). British painter J. M. W. Turner used yellow clouds to create a mood, the way romantic composers of the time used music.
• 
  Georges Seurat used a new pigment, zinc yellow, in the green lawns of A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte (1884–86). He did not know that the paint would quickly deteriorate and turn brown.
• 
  Sunflowers (1888) by Vincent van Gogh is a fountain of yellows.
• 
  Yellow Journalism

  .
• 
  Empress Maria Leopoldina of Brazil with her children.
• 
  Young woman (Marie, from

  Michael Ancher

20th and 21st centuries

In the 20th century, yellow was revived as a symbol of exclusion, as it had been in the Middle Ages and Renaissance. Jews in Nazi Germany and German-occupied countries were required to sew yellow triangles with the star of David onto their clothing.

In the 20th century, modernist painters reduced painting to its simplest colors and geometric shapes. The Dutch modernist painter Piet Mondrian made a series of paintings which consisted of a pure white canvas with a grid of vertical and horizontal black lines and rectangles of yellow, red, and blue.

Yellow was particularly valued in the 20th century because of its high visibility. Because of its ability to be seen well from greater distances and at high speeds, yellow makes for the ideal color to be viewed from moving automobiles.^[29] It often replaced red as the color of fire trucks and other emergency vehicles, and was popular in neon signs, especially in Las Vegas and in China, where yellow was the most esteemed color.

In the 1960s, Pickett Brand developed the "Eye Saver Yellow" slide rule, which was produced with a specific yellow color (Angstrom 5600) that reflects long-wavelength rays and promotes optimum eye-ease to help prevent eyestrain and improve visual accuracy.^[29]

The 21st century saw the use of unusual materials and technologies to create new ways of experiencing the color yellow. One example was The weather project, by Danish-Icelandic artist Olafur Eliasson, which was installed in the open space of the Turbine Hall of London's Tate Modern in 2003.

Eliasson used

• 
  Yellow Room, Frederick Carl Frieseke, 1910
• 
  Jews in

  Nazi-occupied Europe were required to wear yellow badges

  such as this.
• 
  Yellow was valued for its high visibility.

  neon art

  and advertising.
• 
  The Palácio do Planalto, official workplace of the President of Brazil, illuminated in yellow light.

Fruits, vegetables, and eggs

Many fruits are yellow when ripe, such as lemons and bananas, their color derived from

• 
  Acacia dealbata (silver wattle)
• 
  Senna bicapsularis (rambling senna)
• 
  Daffodil
• 
  Galphimia glauca
  (rain of gold)
• 
  Anthyllis vulneraria (common kidneyvetch)
• 
  Tagetes erecta (Mexican marigold)
• 
  Senecio angulatus (creeping groundsel)
• 
  Brugmansia aurea (angel's trumpet)

Other plants

• Rapeseed (Brassica napus), also known as rape or oilseed rape, is a bright yellow flowering member of the family Brassicaceae (mustard or cabbage family).
• Goldenrod is a yellow flowering plant in the family Asteraceae.

Minerals and chemistry

• uranium enrichment, one of the essential steps for creating nuclear weapons
  .
• Titan yellow (also known as clayton yellow),^[34] chemical formula C
  ₂₈H
  ₁₉Na
  ₂O
  ₆S
  ₄ has been used to determine magnesium in serum and urine, but the method is prone to interference, making the ammonium phosphate method superior when analysing blood cells, food or fecal material.^[35]
• Methyl yellow (p-dimethylaminoazobenzene) is a pH indicator used to determine acidity. It changes from yellow at pH 4.0 to red at pH 2.9.^[36][37]
• Yellow
  D-line
  ), a very slightly orange-tinted yellow.
• Amongst the
  allotropes which are yellow or whitish-yellow; fluorine and chlorine
  are pale yellowish gases.
• Many crystalline chemical compounds, such as 2,4-Dinitrophenol, are yellowish in color.

Pigments

• Yellow ochre (also known as Mars yellow, Pigment yellow 42, 43),^[38] hydrated ferric oxide (Fe
  ₂O
  ₃·H
  ₂O), is a naturally occurring pigment found in clays in many parts of the world. It is non-toxic and has been used in painting since prehistoric times.^[39]
• Indian yellow is a transparent, fluorescent pigment used in oil paintings and watercolors. Originally magnesium euxanthate, it was claimed to have been produced from the urine of Indian cows fed only on mango leaves.^[40] It has now been replaced by synthetic Indian yellow hue.
• bindheimite and used extensively up to the 20th century.^[41]
  It is toxic and nowadays is replaced in paint by a mixture of modern pigments.
• azo pigments
  .
• Chrome yellow (lead chromate, PbCrO
  ₄), derived from the mineral crocoite, was used by artists in the earlier part of the 19th century, but has been largely replaced by other yellow pigments because of the toxicity of lead.^[43]
• Zinc yellow or
  pointillist
  paintings. He did not know that it was highly unstable, and would quickly turn brown.
• LBNL paint code "Y10".^[44]
• Gamboge is an orange-brown resin, derived from trees of the genus Garcinia, which becomes yellow when powdered.^[45] It was used as a watercolor pigment in the far east from the 8th century – the name "gamboge" is derived from "Cambodia" – and has been used in Europe since the 17th century.^[46]
• Orpiment, also called King's Yellow or Chinese Yellow is arsenic trisulfide (As
  ₂S
  ₃) and was used as a paint pigment until the 19th century when, because of its high toxicity and reaction with lead-based pigments, it was generally replaced by Cadmium Yellow.^[47]
• Hansa Yellow
  .

Dyes

• Curcuma longa, also known as turmeric, is a plant grown in India and Southeast Asia which serves as a dye for clothing, especially monks' robes; as a spice for curry and other dishes; and as a popular medicine. It is also used as a food coloring for mustard and other products.^[48]
• Curcuma longa
  , also known as Turmeric.

The color of saffron comes from crocin, a red variety of carotenoid natural pigment. The color of the dyed fabric varies from deep red to orange to yellow, depending upon the type of saffron and the process. Most saffron today comes from Iran, but it is also grown commercially in Spain, Italy and Kashmir in India, and as a boutique crop in New Zealand, the United Kingdom, France, Switzerland and other countries. In the United States, it has been cultivated by the Pennsylvania Dutch community since the early 18th century. Because of the high price of saffron, other similar dyes and spices are often sold under the name saffron; for instance, what is called Indian saffron is often really turmeric.

• Reseda luteola, also known as dyers weed, yellow weed or weld, has been used as a yellow dye from neolithic times. It grew wild along the roads and walls of Europe, and was introduced into North America, where it grows as a weed. It was used as both as a yellow dye, whose color was deep and lasting, and to dye fabric green, first by dyeing it blue with indigo, then dyeing it with reseda luteola to turn it a rich, solid and lasting green. It was the most common yellow dye in Europe from the Middle Ages until the 18th century, when it was replaced first by the bark of the quercitron tree from North America, then by synthetic dyes. It was also widely used in North Africa and in the Ottoman Empire.^[50]
• Sanskrit: कंबुज) is the ancient Sanskrit name for Cambodia
  .

• 
  Orpiment was a source of yellow pigment from ancient Egypt through the 19th century, though it is highly toxic.
• 
  Indian yellow pigment
• 
  Chrome yellow was discovered in 1809.
• 
  The dye and spice saffron comes from the dried red stigma of this plant, the crocus sativus.
• 
  Curcuma longa, also known as Turmeric

  , has been used for centuries in India as a dye, particularly for monk's robes. it is also commonly used as a medicine and as a spice in Indian cooking.
• 
  Reseda luteola, also known as dyers weed, yellow weed or weld, was the most popular source of yellow dye in Europe from the Middle Ages through the 18th century.
• 
  The Garcinia tree of Southeast Asia, whose resin is used to make the yellow dye called gamboge.

Food coloring

The most common yellow food coloring in use today is called Tartrazine. It is a synthetic lemon yellow azo dye.^[55][56] It is also known as E number E102, C.I. 19140, FD&C yellow 5, acid yellow 23, food yellow 4, and trisodium 1-(4-sulfonatophenyl)-4-(4-sulfonatophenylazo)-5-pyrazolone-3-carboxylate.^[57] It is the yellow most frequently used such processed food products as corn and potato chips, breakfast cereals such as corn flakes, candies, popcorn, mustard, jams and jellies, gelatin, soft drinks (notably Mountain Dew), energy and sports drinks, and pastries. It is also widely used in liquid and bar soap, shampoo, cosmetics and medicines. Sometimes it is mixed with blue dyes to color processed products green.

It is typically labelled on food packages as "color", "tartrazine", or "E102". In the United States, because of concerns about possible health problems related to intolerance to tartrazine, its presence must be declared on food and drug product labels.^[58]

Another popular synthetic yellow coloring is

In the west, yellow is not a well-loved color. In a year 2000 survey, only 6% of respondents in Europe and America named it as their favorite color, compared with 45% for blue, 15% for green, 12% for red, and 10% for black. For 7% of respondents, it was their least favorite color.[60] Yellow is considered a color of ambivalence and contradiction. It is associated with optimism and amusement, but also with betrayal, duplicity, and jealousy.^[60] However, in China and other parts of Asia, yellow is a color of virtue and nobility.

In China

Yellow has strong historical and cultural associations in China, where huáng (

In current Chinese pop culture, the term "yellow movie" (黃色電影) refers to films and other cultural items of a pornographic nature, analogous to the English "blue movie".^[66] This was the basis of the 2007 "very erotic very violent" meme, with the word "erotic" calquing Chinese "yellow".

• 
  The Yellow River at Sanmenxia
• 
  Portrait of the Jiajing Emperor from the Ming dynasty.
• 
  The Qianlong Emperor in court dress (18th century).
• 
  Daoguang period Peking glass vase, a shade called "Imperial Yellow" after the Qing banner
• 
  Yellow roofs in the Forbidden City
• 
  Neon lights in modern Shanghai with a predominance of red and yellow.

Light and reason

Yellow, as the color of sunlight when sun is near the horizon, is commonly associated with warmth. Yellow combined with red symbolized heat and energy. A room painted yellow feels warmer than a room painted white, and a lamp with yellow light seems more natural than a lamp with white light.

As the color of light, yellow is also associated with knowledge and wisdom. In English and many other languages, "brilliant" and "bright" mean intelligent. In Islam, the yellow color of gold symbolizes wisdom. In medieval European symbolism, red symbolized passion, blue symbolized the spiritual, and yellow symbolized reason. In many European universities, yellow gowns and caps are worn by members of the faculty of physical and natural sciences, as yellow is the color of reason and research.^[67]

Gold and blond

In ancient Greece and Rome, the gods were often depicted with yellow, or blonde hair, which was described in literature as 'golden'. The color yellow was associated with the sun gods Helios and Apollo. It was fashionable in ancient Greece for men and women to dye their hair yellow, or to spend time in the sun to bleach it.^[68] In ancient Rome, prostitutes were required to bleach their hair, to be easily identified, but it also became a fashionable hair color for aristocratic women, influenced by the exotic blonde hair of many of the newly conquered slaves from Gaul, Britain, and Germany.^[69] However, in medieval Europe and later, the word yellow often had negative connotations; associated with betrayal, so yellow hair was more poetically called 'blond,' 'light', 'fair,' or most often "golden".^[68]

Visibility and caution

Yellow is the most visible color from a distance, so it is often used for objects that need to be seen, such as fire engines, road maintenance equipment, school buses and taxicabs. It is also often used for warning signs, since yellow traditionally signals caution, rather than danger. Safety yellow is often used for safety and accident prevention information. A yellow light on a traffic signal means slow down, but not stop. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) uses Pantone 116 (a yellow hue) as their standard color implying "general warning", while the Federal Highway Administration similarly uses yellow to communicate warning or caution on highway signage.^[29] A yellow penalty card in a soccer match means warning, but not expulsion.

• 
  In North America, school buses such as this one in Albemarle County, Virginia are required to be painted yellow.
• 
  A mailbox in Germany. Yellow was the color of the early postal service in the Habsburg Empire.
• 
  A crash tender of the Royal Danish Air Force.
• 
  An RAF Sea King rescue helicopter.
• 
  Yellow penalty card used during an association football match

Optimism and pleasure

Yellow is the color most associated with optimism and pleasure; it is a color designed to attract attention, and is used for amusement. Yellow dresses in fashion are rare, but always associated with gaiety and celebration.

• 
  The

  Franz Winterhalter

  (1854)
• 
  Portrait of Madame Kuznetsova, by Ilya Repin. (1901)
• 
  The Ball by James Tissot (1880)
• 
  Yellow Dress – Paris Haute Couture Spring-Summer
• 
  Kuchipudi dancers
• 
  Singer Kylie Minogue performs at a Nobel Prize Concert

Mayan and Italian

The ancient Maya associated the color yellow with the direction South. The Maya glyph for "yellow" (k'an) also means "precious" or "ripe".^[70]

"Giallo", in Italian, refers to crime stories, both fictional and real. This association began in about 1930, when the first series of crime novels published in Italy had yellow covers.

Music

• Yellow Submarine
  , based on the music of the Beatles.
• The March 1967 album by Donovan called Mellow Yellow reached number 2 on the U.S. Billboard charts in 1966 and number 8 in the UK in early 1967. The song of the same name popularized a widely-held belief that it was possible to get high by smoking scrapings from the inside of banana peels. This rumor was actually started in 1966 by Country Joe McDonald.
• Coldplay achieved worldwide fame with their 2000 single "Yellow".
• "Yellow River" is a song recorded by the British band Christie in 1970.
• The Yellow River Piano Concerto is a piano concerto arranged by a collaboration between musicians including Yin Chengzong and Chu Wanghua. Its premiere was in 1969 during the Cultural Revolution.

Politics

• Yellow as a
  UKIP in the United Kingdom, the SNP in Scotland, ACT in New Zealand, and Libertarian Party
  in the United States.
• In the United States, a
  Reconstruction
  period. Today the term refers to a hard-core Democrat, supposedly referring to a person who would vote for a "yellow dog" before voting for a Republican.
• In China the
  Daoist sect that staged an extensive rebellion during the Han dynasty
  .
• The 1986
  PDP-Laban, and the Liberal Party
  have used the color yellow. More recently, it has become a pejorative term used by some pro-Ferdinand Marcos and pro-Rodrigo Duterte against the opposition.
• In France in November and December 2018, an opposition movement called the
  Yellow Vests went into the streets to protest against the fiscal policies of President Emmanuel Macron. They wore yellow safety vests, which French motorists are required by law to have in their cars.^[73]

Three of the five most populous countries in the world (China and Brazil) have yellow or gold in their flag, representing about half of the world's population. While many flags use yellow, their symbolism varies widely, from civic virtue to golden treasure, golden fields, the desert, royalty, the keys to Heaven and the leadership of the Communist Party. In classic European heraldry, yellow, along with white, is one of the two metals (called gold and silver) and therefore flags following heraldic design rules must use either yellow or white to separate any of their other colors (see the rule of tincture and insignia).

• 
  Flag of Belgium (1831). The yellow comes from the yellow lion in the coat of arms of the Duchy of Brabant, founded in 1183–84.
• 
  Bhutanese mythology

  . The yellow represents civic tradition, the red the Buddhist spiritual tradition.
• 
  Flag of Brazil (1889). The yellow color was inherited from the flag of the Empire of Brazil (1822–1889), where it represented the color of the House of Habsburg.
• 
  Sultan of Brunei

  , and also appears on the flag of Thailand and of Malaysia.
• 
  Flag of Chad (1959). The color yellow here represents the sun and the desert in the north of the country. This flag is identical to that of Romania, except that it uses a slightly darker indigo blue rather than cobalt blue.
• 
  Flag of the People's Republic of China (1949). The four small gold stars represent the workers, peasants, urban middle class, and rural middle class. The large star represents the Chinese Communist Party

  .
• 
  Flag of Colombia. The asymmetric design of the flag is based on the old Flag of Gran Colombia. The yellow color represents the golden treasure taken from Colombia over the centuries.
• 
  Flag of Germany. Black, red and yellow were the colors of the Holy Roman Emperor, and, in 1919, of the German Weimar Republic. The modern German flag was adopted in 1949.
• 
  Flag of Jamaica (1962). It is currently the only national flag that does not contain a shade of the colors red, white, or blue.
• 
  Flag of Lithuania (1918 to 1940, restored in 1989, modified in 2004). Yellow represents the sun, light and goodness.
• 
  British East India Company

  .
• 
  Flag of Mozambique (1983). The colors are those of the Marxist Liberation Front of Mozambique, or FRELIMO, which rules the country. Yellow represents the country's mineral wealth.
• 
  Flag of the Philippines (1898). The yellow sun is in the middle of the triangle shape.
• 
  Flag of Romania (1848, and again in 1989, after the fall of the Communist regime.) Blue, yellow and red were the colors of the Wallachian uprising of 1821, and the 1848 revolution. Yellow represents justice.
• 
  Crown of Castille and the Crown of Aragon

  . The general design was adopted in 1785 for the Spanish Navy, to be visible from a great distance at sea.
• 
  Eric the Holy

  saw a golden cross appear in the blue sky.
• 
  Flag of Ukraine (1992 (originally in 1918)).
• 
  Book of Matthew of the New Testament

  , and part of the Papal seal on the flag.
• 
  Flag of Vietnam (1955). The big gold star represents five main classes (laborers, soldiers, peasants, intellectuals and bourgeois).

Defunct flags

• 
  The banner of the Holy Roman Empire (15th century). The black, yellow and red colors reappeared first in 1848 and then in the 20th century in the German flag.
• 
  (1819) The flag of Gran Colombia, which won independence from Spain, then broke into three countries (Colombia, Venezuela and Ecuador) in 1830.
• 
  Imperial flag of the

  Xinhai Revolution

  of 1911.
• 
  Flag of

  Saigon

  on 30 April 1975.
• 
  The flag of East Germany (1959–90). It differs from the West German flag by the presence of a communist symbol in the center, and it fell out of use when Germany was reunified after the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Religion

• In
  Hinayana Buddhism, practiced in Southeast Asia, usually wear ochre or saffron color. Monks of the forest tradition in Thailand and other parts of Southeast Asia wear robes of a brownish ochre, dyed from the wood of the jackfruit tree.^[74][76]
• In Hinduism, the divinity Krishna is commonly portrayed dressed in yellow. Yellow and saffron are also the colors worn by sadhu, or wandering holy men in India. The Hindu almighty and divine god Lord Ganesha or Ganpati is mostly dressed with a dhotar in yellow, which is popularly known as pivla pitambar and is considered to be the most auspicious one.
• In Sikhism: The Sikh Rehat Maryada clearly states that the Nishan Sahib hoisted outside every Gurudwara should be xanthic (Basanti in Punjabi) or greyish blue (modern day Navy blue) (Surmaaee in Punjabi) color.^[77][78]
• In Islam, the yellow color of gold symbolizes wisdom.
• In the religions of the islands of
  curcuma longa plant, which is considered the food of the gods.^[76]
• In the
  Roman Catholic Church, yellow symbolizes gold, and in Christian mythology the golden key to the Kingdom of Heaven, which divine Christ gave to Saint Peter. The flag of the Vatican City and the colors of the pope are yellow and white, symbolizing the gold key and the silver key. White and yellow together can also symbolize Easter, rebirth and Resurrection. Yellow also has a negative meaning, symbolizing betrayal; Judas Iscariot is usually portrayed wearing a pale yellow toga. Yellow and golden halos
  mark the saints in religious paintings.
• In Wicca, yellow represents intellect, inspiration, imagination, and knowledge. It is used for communication, confidence, divination, and study.^[79]

• 
  Buddhist monks at the promotion ceremony of a monk in Thailand
• 
  Buddhist monks in Tibet
• 
  A Japanese Buddhist monk in downtown Tokyo
• 
  A Hindu sadhu, or ascetic wandering monk or holy man, in Kathmandu, Nepal.
• 
  Christ giving the golden key of the kingdom heaven to Saint Peter (1481–82), by Pietro Perugino. The golden key is the symbol of the Pope.
• 
  Pope Benedict XVI. The Pope traditionally wears gold and white outside St. Peter's Basilica.
• 
  Sikh Nishan Sahib in blue, at Akali Phoola Singh di Burj in Amritsar

New Age Spiritual Metaphysics

• In the
  Seven Rays which classifies humans into seven different metaphysical psychological types, the fourth ray of harmony through conflict is represented by the color yellow. People who have this metaphysical psychological type are said to be on the Yellow Ray."^[80]
• Yellow is used to symbolically represent the third, solar plexus chakra (Manipura).^[81]
• Psychics who claim to be able to observe the aura with their third eye report that someone with a yellow aura is typically someone who is in an occupation requiring intellectual acumen, such as a scientist.^[82]

Sports

• In Association football (soccer), the
  yellow card
  to indicate that a player has been officially warned because they have committed a foul or have wasted time.
• Originally in
  sin bin
  .
• In
  yellow jersey – or maillot jaune – is awarded to the leader in some stage races. The tradition was begun in the Tour de France where the sponsoring L'Auto newspaper (later L'Équipe) was printed on distinctive yellow newsprint
  .

• National teams of Brazil, Sweden and Ukraine usually play in yellow shirts.

Transportation

• In some countries,
  taxicabs are commonly yellow. This practice began in Chicago, where taxi entrepreneur John D. Hertz painted his taxis yellow based on a University of Chicago study alleging that yellow is the color most easily seen at a distance.^[83]
• In Canada and the United States, school buses are almost uniformly painted a yellow color (often referred to as "school bus yellow") for purposes of visibility and safety,^[84] and British bus operators such as FirstGroup are attempting to introduce the concept there.^[85]
• "Caterpillar yellow" and "high-visibility yellow" are used for highway construction equipment.^[86]
• In the
  railway signaling, yellow is often the color for warning, slow down, such as with distant signals.^[87]
• Selective yellow is used in some automotive headlamps and fog lights to reduce the dazzling effects of rain, snow, and fog.

Maritime signaling

• In International maritime signal flags a yellow flag denotes the letter "Q".^[88] It also means a ship asserts that it does not need to be quarantined.^[88]

Idioms and expressions

• Yellow-belly is an American expression which means a
  coward.^[89] The term comes from the 19th century and the exact origin is unknown, but it may refer to the color of sickness, which means a person lacks strength and stamina.^[90]
• Yellow journalism is also an American term for news which present limited research to its findings.
• Yellow pages refers in various countries to directories of telephone numbers, arranged alphabetically by the type of business or service offered.
• Asian people, especially
  East Asians, have been racialized as yellow.^[91]
  • The
    Kaiser Wilhelm II in Germany in 1895, and was the subject of numerous books and later films.^[92]
  • Yellow fever is a slang phrase to describe an Asian race fetish.^[93]
• High yellow was a term sometimes used in the early 20th century, to describe light-skinned African-Americans.
• Yellow snow, snow that is yellow from urination.

See also

• Chromophobia
• Lists of colors
• Shades of yellow
• Sodium-vapor lamp

Notes

References

Look up yellow in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Yellow.

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