“Colors” or “Colours”—What's the difference?

Usage by country

Where each spelling is used

Of the 12 countries below, 7 prefer “colors” and 5 prefer “colours”. Usage levels are out of 100; the more common spelling in each country is in bold.

Usage level out of 100 (if available).
Country	colors	colours	Preference
United States	99	1	“colors”
United Kingdom	22	78	“colours”
India	43	57	“colours”
Philippines	97	3	“colors”
Canada	59	41	“colors”
Australia	20	80	“colours”
Liberia	91	9	“colors”
Ireland	23	77	“colours”
New Zealand	26	74	“colours”
Jamaica	57	43	“colors”
Trinidad & Tobago	58	42	“colors”
Guyana	58	42	“colors”

Usage

Examples in context

Real sentences for each spelling. Hover an example to copy it.

“colors”

…Colonești, changing its name and colors.
…Hotshots and reverted the team colors to red, yellow and white.
…through the use of bright colors.
…press for printing in several colors.
…manufacturers began using bright, distinctive colors for branding (e.g., Allis-Chalmers orange).
Precipitate colors
…phrase ubhau varnav (literally, "both colors").
…SI/SO escape sequences, and support colors and animation.
…value is coded by (pseudo) colors.
The colors' hexadecimal values are approximated below.

“colours”

…tradition of rich, subtly varying, colours in oil painting.
…and gold as the school colours, based on those at Aberdeen…
The home colours are green and yellow and…
Bonzet ran in the colours of Bellville Athletics club
…the chest, representing the traditional colours and design of the flag…
The Regimental Colours of the 57th and the…
…paintings, by expanses of solid colours, pure, vigorous, intense and luminous…
…near the end of Flying Colours, a 1938 Horatio Hornblower novel…
President's colours
…racing in Huon Rowing Club colours in 2014.

Examples are Wikipedia snippets under the CC ShareAlike 3.0 license.

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