Where Did this Colour Get its Name? Quiz

Answer: Teal

The teal is a small duck which lives mainly in Europe and Asia, although they do migrate south to parts of Africa and even to parts of the USA in winter. The drake has a distinctive greenish blue stripe over its eye, and the colour was given its name from this.

Aquamarine, jade and emerald can be gemstones as well as colours, but none of them is a duck.

Answer: Blue

Navy blue is a dark shade of blue. It was originally called marine blue but has been known as navy blue since the early years of the nineteenth century. The name came from the colour of the uniforms worn by sailors in Britain's navy.

Answer: Chocolate

Chocolate is a shade of brown, orange is a mixture of red and yellow, cherry is a shade of red and peach is a pale orange colour.

All the colours were named for things you can eat. Oranges, cherries and peaches are all fruits, though, making chocolate the odd one out.

Answer: Mineral

The mineral turquoise has been known by that name in the English speaking world as it was brought to Europe from Turkey in the seventeenth century. The mineral is much older than that, of course, and is known by many other names in different countries. In some civilisations, including Ancient Egypt and the Aztec Empire, turquoise was believed to bring good luck.

The colour is a pale shade which is a mixture of blue and green.

Answer: Coffee

Café au lait means 'coffee with milk' in French, and the name has been used for a lighter shade of brown since the early nineteenth century. Coffee itself can be used to describe a shade of brown, but this one is much darker.

Answer: Yellow

The spice saffron is the most expensive in the world since it takes so many flowers to create the spice. Only the tip of the stigma is used. When it is used in food, especially with rice, it gives a yellow colour to that food. Consequently, the saffron colour is a golden yellow shade. The name has been in use for the colour for a long time - since around 1200.

Answer: Fern

Cornflower, iris and periwinkle are all blue colours, named for the colours of their flowers.

Fern is a shade of green, named after the colour of the fern's fronds, and has been used to describe that shade of green since the beginning of the 1900s.

Answer: Flower

Heliotrope belongs to the same family as the herb borage. Some varieties of heliotrope have purplish pink flowers, and this name was given to a colour of this shade in 1882.

Answer: Between gold and orange

Amber is a resin from trees and has been valued for many thousands of years for its colour. It often has insects or other small creatures inside it, as they have been caught in the sticky resin before being fossilised.

The colour of natural amber can vary from a quite pale shade to a very dark colour close to orange, but the name has been used since 1500 to describe a golden yellow/orange shade.

Answer: Salmon

Salmon is named for the colour of the flesh of the fish. Although the shades can vary in the fish, the colour is a shade of pinkish orange or red, and has been called by the name since 1776. Variations in the colours are known as light salmon, salmon pink and dark salmon.

As far as I can ascertain, none of the other fish listed has donated its name to any colour.