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“Watercolor” or “Watercolour”

Watercolor is predominantly used in American (US) English (en-US) while watercolour is predominantly used in British English (used in UK/AU/NZ) (en-GB).

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Usage by country

Where each spelling is used

Of the 12 countries below, 6 prefer “watercolor” and 4 prefer “watercolour”. Usage levels are out of 100; the more common spelling in each country is in bold.

Usage level out of 100 (if available).
Country watercolor watercolour Preference
United States 99 1 “watercolor”
United Kingdom 33 67 “watercolour”
India 88 12 “watercolor”
Philippines 98 2 “watercolor”
Canada 68 32 “watercolor”
Australia 32 68 “watercolour”
Liberia 0 0 Not enough data
Ireland 43 57 “watercolour”
New Zealand 40 60 “watercolour”
Jamaica 84 16 “watercolor”
Trinidad & Tobago 69 31 “watercolor”
Guyana 0 0 Not enough data
Usage

Examples in context

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

“watercolor”

  • …American artist Sarah Goodridge, a watercolor portrait miniature on a piece…
  • …to the formation of English watercolor painting societies: the Society of…
  • Watercolor.
  • …combining pencil, colored pencil and watercolor with a light-as-air touch.
  • The Watercolor (Tr: Suluboya) is a 2009…
  • …work in the medium of watercolor.
  • The Watercolor Artist's Paper Directory.
  • …is to become the greatest watercolor collector of the world.
  • …known for small-scale ink and watercolor drawings
  • …the pigments in paintings (especially watercolor pigments) and bleach the dyes…

“watercolour”

  • Watercolour drawings
  • …English Heritage Archive, and his watercolour paintings and drawings of London…
  • …'Titi''' (1856), Gouache/paperAn Angel (1857) Watercolour, pencil/paperDamenportrait (1859) 19x13 InkPortraet af…
  • …now known as the Royal Watercolour Society) and the New Water…
  • …sporting and pastoral scenes in watercolour that he achieved the popularity…
  • Royal Watercolour Society
  • …has shared her gift for watercolour painting through teaching, exhibitions, commissioned…
  • Roots, Watercolour, gouache, pen and ink on…
  • His watercolours are amongst the most technically…
  • …a number of portraits in watercolour, among these one of Henry…

Examples are Wikipedia snippets under the CC ShareAlike 3.0 license.

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