Palette

Part of speech: noun

Pronunciation: /ˈpælɪt/

Definitions

1. A board or surface for mixing colors, a collection of hues used in visual arts, and a range of shades employed for artistic expression are all aspects related to artistic creation
2. A flat surface used by painters to organize and blend pigments; an assortment of tones or shades chosen for a particular piece; the selection of colors associated with a style or theme
3. A flat tool on which artists spread and combine paint ; the variety of colors selected for use in artwork ; the complete range of colors that a device or medium can display

Etymology: The painter's palette started life as a shovel-like tool. French "palette" was a diminutive of "pale," a spade or small blade, and the same Latin root "pala," meaning spade, also gave English "pallet," the flat board used for stacking goods. The two words are doublets: they split apart as they passed into English from French, one keeping the sense of a flat broad surface and the other drifting toward a mixing board for pigments. The step from spade to paint tray is simple once you see it. A palette in this sense is a thin, flat surface, the same shape as a spade's blade, and painters used it to hold and mix colours. English borrowed the word from French, where it had already taken on that artist's sense, and English speakers then applied it to the eyeshadow compacts and digital colour panels that share the same job of blending hues on a flat surface.

Synonyms: color scheme, selection, range, spectrum, board