ocher

noun \ ˈō-kər \

variants: or ochre

|Updated on: 7 Jun 2018

Definition of ocher

1 : an earthy usually red or yellow and often impure iron ore used as a pigment

2 : the color of ocher; especially : the color of yellow ocher

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ocherous

play \ˈō-k(ə-)rəs\ or ochreous play \ˈō-k(ə-)rəs, -krē-əs\ adjective

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Recent Examples of ocher from the Web

Out of the darkened cleft of the fjord, three outriggers soon emerge, propelled by local Korafe women in skirts of tapa bark cloth painted with ocher, their necks hung with flowers and shells, and faces tattooed in black.

— sophy roberts, Condé Nast Traveler, "Navigating Tradition and Tourism in Papua New Guinea," 3 May 2018
In a palette of chartreuse, ocher, cinnamon and gamboge, Ito overlaid uncommon shapes, such as a rectangle rounded and pinched at the top like a loaf of Wonder Bread, into compositions of preternatural calm.

— jason farago, New York Times, "10 Galleries to Visit Now Around SoHo and TriBeCa," 26 Apr. 2018
The 2016 work, which the artist calls conceptual sculpture, renders the club complex, built as a power plant in a monumental Stalinist style, as an uncanny ocher monolith.

— j.s. marcus, WSJ, "Nightclub at the Museum: Decades of Disco Design," 16 Mar. 2018
The color rocks found at the site were manganese and ocher, perfect for making black and red, respectively.

— david grossman, Popular Mechanics, "Discovered: 300,000-Year-Old Tools and Paints That Point to Early Humanity's Cleverness," 15 Mar. 2018
Their pale, pinkish clay offsets the denser hues of emerald, siena and ocher in the paintings, and their bent and folded planes, wedges and lobes rhyme with the geometries on paper.

— leah ollman, latimes.com, "For Nathan Hayden at CB1 Gallery, the smaller the canvas, the bigger the effect," 13 Mar. 2018
The scientists traveled to a cave on the coast of Spain where Dr. Zilhão had earlier discovered shells that had been drilled with holes and painted with ocher.

— carl zimmer, New York Times, "Neanderthals, the World’s First Misunderstood Artists," 22 Feb. 2018
Guest rooms wrap around the courtyard or look onto Via Gesù; they are decorated in green, ocher, and terra-cotta with Fortuny fabrics and Frette linens.

— Condé Nast Traveler, "Four Seasons Hotel Milano," 20 Oct. 2017
Inside, archaeologists discovered many artifacts and human bones, some amid ocher deposits, as if to represent blood.

— judith h. dobrzynski, WSJ, "A Powerful Symbol of a Lost Civilization," 15 Sep. 2017

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'ocher.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.