?a1425 tr. Guy de Chauliac Grande Chirurgie (N.Y. Acad. Med.) f. 5^v (MED) Changing of herez and..teyntyng i. coloring.

a1450 in M. Sellers York Memorandum Bk. (1912) I. 65 (MED) The cuureour craft, he sall haf at the fyrst dryssyng, coloryng, or shafyng redy to the drying for j dakyr vij d..for drissyng it clen up als it awe to be.

1495 Trevisa's Bartholomeus De Proprietatibus Rerum (de Worde) xvi. xxiv. sig. kvii/1 In peyntynge and colourynge of walles.

1546 T. Langley tr. P. Vergil De Invent. iii. xii. f. lxxxii Medea found the diyng and coloryng of heare, and our women of England haue not forgotten it.

1582 R. Mulcaster 1st Pt. Elementarie xi. 58 Whatsoeuer shall belong to coloring, to shadowing, and such more workmanlie points.

1622 J. Mabbe tr. M. Alemán Rogue ii. iii. 28 This dying and colouring of her hoary haires,..some of them seemed greene vnto me, some blue, some yellow, some vermilion.

1656 Disc. Auxiliary Beauty 25 The use of any colouring or complexioning of the face or skin.

1671 J. Webster Metallographia xxix. 376 It hath also the property of colouring, being indeed the Sulphur, or fire of Nature, from whence all colours do arise.

1737 Compl. Family-piece (ed. 2) iii. 524 Grind your Red-Lead with Linseed Oil, and use it very thin for the first Colouring or Priming.

a1763 W. Shenstone Wks. Verse & Prose (1764) I. 95 (heading) Written in a Flower Book of my own Colouring.

1821 W. M. Craig Lect. Drawing iii. 183 The colouring of a head in a process of water colours.

1880 Harper's Mag. June 36/1 Hundreds of women..are taking lessons in china-painting, silk-painting, the coloring of photographs, and crayon-drawings.

1907 Westm. Gaz. 12 Apr. 4/2 For the nearer colouring he would still serve himself out a liberal squeeze of burnt-sienna.

1956 Life 5 Mar. 176 Set up a play table with materials for coloring and modeling.

1979 H. de Landsberg Hortus Deliciarum iii. 29 The painter had to cease his colouring of the canopy at the margin of the inscription.

2001 Middle East Times (Egypt ed.) 7 Apr. 15/2 (advt.) Hairstyling, perming, highlighting, coloring, manicuring, pedicuring and hair removal.

1815 T. Leach Cases Crown Law (ed. 4) II. 153 Extracting latent silver from the body of base metal by means of aqua fortis, is a colouring within the 8 and 9 Will. III. c. 26. s. 4.

1875 W. S. Jevons Money (1878) 126 It is usual to dissolve the copper from the surface of the blank pieces of metal, so as to produce a film of pure white silver upon the surface. This operation called colouring, gives a fine bright appearance to the [base silver] coins when new.

1914 Brass World & Platers' Guide Apr. 154/2 Wherever fine ‘coloring’ is to be done, the manufacturers claim that this rouge will be found capable of giving the finest possible results.

1937 Sci. Progress 32 556 Colouring of a metal, so as to imitate gold or silver, was regarded as analogous to the dyeing of cloth.

1964 R. J. Forbes Stud. Anc. Technol. (ed. 2) VIII. v. 171 The ‘Leiden-Stockholm’ papyri give many recipes for the colouring of metal surfaces to give them the appearance of precious metals.

1885 Wallace's Monthly July 428/2 Coloring may be done by dipping, or by showering any colored liquid over the sheep's back with a syringe or otherwise.

1886 C. Scott Pract. Sheep-farming 172 Colouring is the art of painting the wool on the sheep's back.

1950 Scotsman 2 June 9/1 For this year's Royal Highland Show..the rule about dipping or colouring which was in operation until last year is abandoned.

?1533–4 R. Saltwood Compar. bytwene iiij. Byrdes sig. Biii Whyte, sprynkeled of semble colouryng Lyke in the blake botel lyquor hydyth.

?1537 Hugh of Caumpedene tr. Hist. Kyng Boccus sig. G.ii^v Of al thynges is seen nothyng But only the colouryng.

c1610–15 tr. Gregory of Nazianzus Life St. Gorgonia in C. Horstmann Lives Women Saints (1886) 160 As for paynted face, or colouring of eyes, and such like brickle brauerie.

1757 E. Burke Philos. Enq. Sublime & Beautiful iii. §17. 103 The beauty both of shape and colouring are as nearly related, as we can well suppose it possible.

1768 O. Goldsmith Good Natur'd Man iv. 53 I presum'd to reprove you for painting: but your warmer blushes soon convinc'd the company, that the colouring was all from nature.

1807 W. Wordsworth Ode in Poems II. 158 The Clouds..Do take a sober colouring from an eye That hath kept watch o'er man's mortality. View more context for this quotation

1879 G. Allen Colour-sense i. 3 The existence of bright colouring in the world at large.

1937 Amer. Home Apr. 116/3 (advt.) Any pattern you choose, no matter how dainty its colorings, is honestly washable.

1952 W. J. Miller Introd. Hist. Geol. (ed. 6) xix. 267 Because of their high degree of sculpturing and coloring,..they [sc. Triassic rocks] form a striking feature of the landscape.

2000 DigitalFoto Oct. 38/2 A white background won't work—the coloring is too close to the highlights on the jewelry, and the detail will be blown out.

1575 G. Gascoigne Noble Arte Venerie xix. 48 Some beare red heads, some blacke, and some whyte, all which colourings proceede of nature.

1707 tr. P. Le Lorrain de Vallemont Curiosities in Husbandry & Gardening 61 To give the Flowers that lively and beautiful Colouring, which is..their chief Merit.

1857 C. Darwin Let. 5 June (1990) VI. 409 I can plainly see the colouring & marks of the grandfather of the Ass, Horse, Quagga, Hemionus & Zebra, some millions of generations ago!

1901 M. C. Dickerson Moths & Butterflies i. 5 Large butterflies..conspicuous because of their bright orange-brown and black coloring.

2007 Canad. Gardening Summer 58/1 The tapered shape and warm colouring of Kniphofia..have given rise to the common names poker plant, flame flower and red-hot poker.

1634 J. Bate Myst. Nature & Art (title page) Of Drawing, Colouring, Painting, and Engrauing.

1658 W. Sanderson Graphice 74 Ruben in his affected Colouring..and Cornelius of Harlem in his loose & untrussed figures,..seem..to abuse that gentle and modest licence.

1706 J. Savage tr. R. de Piles Art of Painting 5 Colouring..comprehends two things, the Local colour, and the Claro Oscuro.

1762 H. Walpole Vertue's Anecd. Painting I. vii. 158 The colouring is flat and chalky.

1796 J. Farington Diary 16 May (1978) II. 549 I told Carey his pictures intended for exhibition were too cold, in colouring, therefore I only proposed to have one of them exhibited.

1827 B. Disraeli Vivian Grey IV. vi. vi. 200 Brilliancy of colouring and boldness of outline.

1862 G. W. Thornbury Life J. M. W. Turner I. 339 The old Téméraire is the most glorious consummation of colouring ever painted by English fingers.

1956 M. J. Friedlænder From Van Eyck to Bruegel 59 A harmonious cool colouring, glistening opal-like and transparent.

1996 I. Chilvers Conc. Oxf. Dict. Art & Artists (ed. 2) 179 Abandoning the earlier practice of using gold and brilliant colours and insisting upon realistic colouring from the polychromists who painted his sculptures.

1731 J. Tracy Periander iv. i. 40 One dim Paleness spreads o'er all the Face, And the fair colouring of Nature dies.

1841 C. Bury Family Records I. i. 8 The ruby tints of her smiling and delicate mouth, and the deep brown of her straightly pencilled eyebrows, relieved her coloring from insipidity.

1870 Dublin Univ. Mag. Nov. 570/2 Her eyes were bright, so was her colouring, but not too much so, blanc de perle was judiciously blended with other appliances of the toilette.

1909 Chatterbox 300/2 But nothing suited him so well as these Eastern people, with their warm colouring and their rich, brilliant attire.

1953 D. Silone tr. I. Silone Handful of Blackberries i. xvi. 94 He had never seen people with such delicate colouring.

1978 J. Krantz Scruples x. 288 His nose had a proconsular boldness, and his coloring was bronze all over.

2002 H. Jacobson Who's Sorry Now? (2003) ii. i. 174 The homogeneity of her colouring seemed to him the very model of beauty.

1624 E. Gurnay Romish Chaine 98 The vilest man that is, hauing a deeper Character and impression of God, then the colourings, caruings, or works of any mortall man whatsoeuer.

1699 E. Ward London Spy II. ii. 7 No Gilding, Carving, Colouring, or good Contrivance, was here wanting.

1753 Scots Mag. Nov. 546/2 A coach of state bedaubed with gilt and colourings.

1868 Horticulturist Feb. 58/2 (heading) Drawings and colourings of fruit and flowers.

1900 Bookseller & Stationer Jan. 12/2 The colorings are delicate and tasteful, the idea of Easter greeting being paramount to everything else.

2009 R. Cyr-Quasmi Labels xxiv. 215 Del showed me a picture that had been waded up, a coloring of a child's.

1888 Ann. Rep. Board Educ. Connecticut 302 All knowledge comes through seeing and touching, whether the division taught be clay moulding, paper cutting, drawing, or coloring.

1912 R. Weatherbee Lessons for Sunday Kindergarten p. xi The coloring of pictures makes a very good Sunday afternoon occupation.

1952 Billings (Montana) Gaz. 17 Nov. 1/4 He wanted to do his home work there, and Marion wanted it to herself while she did some coloring.

1980 Pacific Stars & Stripes 28 Dec. 30/5 Elizabeth likes painting, coloring and playing with paper dolls.

2006 P. Knight Coding of Concrete Animal vii. 86 It was just after lunch when Mark came over and tried to do some colouring with him.

1509 S. Hawes Pastime of Pleasure (Contents) Of elocucyon the thyrde parte of rethoryke with colourynge of sentences.

1695 J. Dryden in tr. C. A. Du Fresnoy De Arte Graphica Pref. p. xlix But the dictio Virgiliana, the expression of Virgil; his Colouring was incomparably the better.

1763 J. Brown Diss. Poetry & Music xi. 190 The..highest Colourings of his [sc. Virgil's] Pencil are prostituted to the Vanity of the ruling Tyrant.

a1797 H. Walpole Walpoliana (1799) I. clxi. 135 From the elegance of its language, and the warm colouring of the descriptions.

1825 T. B. Macaulay Milton in Edinb. Rev. Aug. 320 The most exquisite art of poetical colouring.

1869 Eclectic Mag. June 677/2 Whatever deepened the music or enriched the coloring of his verse, was to him [sc. Petrarch] an advantage.

1902 J. S. Phillimore Sophocles Introd. 83 The colouring of the phrase, its more or less of poetical and imaged quality.

1990 D. Hopkins Eng. Poetry Pref. p. ix The writer is deploying..verbal colouring, heightened diction, or impassioned rhetoric to a degree that one would not normally expect to find in discursive prose.

1771 C. Burney Present State Music France & Italy 379 The subject seems to be extremely well adapted for musical expression: the sternness of the judge; the indifference of the false mother; and the tenderness of the true, are severally susceptible of different musical colouring and expression.

1847 Times 10 Mar. 8/5 The Mozartean form, the short phraseology, the contrapuntal colouring for which all Beethoven's first works are remarkable.

1881 Athenæum 26 Mar. 437/1 A certain want of variety in the colouring of his music.

1931 Musical Times 72 750/2 He is fond of rich, romantic colouring; his mass of tone glows refulgently.

1985 M. Kennedy Oxf. Dict. Music at Colour It is customary to speak of ‘colouring’ or ‘tone‐colour’ where variations of timbre or tone are prod. by different intensities of the overtones of sounds.

2004 Daily Tel. 11 May 18/6 Vibrato wasn't banished, but it was used in a subtle way, a colouring or ornament rather than a handy sign for feeling.