Beige

Beige may be described as a brown color with a cream colored tone, an off- (sometimes dark) tan color, or an extremely pale yellowish brown color.

The term originates from beige cloth, a cotton fabric left undyed in its natural color. It has since come to be used for a range of light tints chosen for their neutral or pale warm appearance.

The first recorded use of beige as a color name in English was in 1887, although the term had been used much earlier in French.

Beginning in the 1920s, the meaning of the term beige expanded to the point where it is now also used not only for pale yellow colors, but also for a wide range of pale brown shades, some of more notable of which are shown below.

It is notoriously difficult to produce in traditional offset CMYK printing due to the low levels of inks used on each plate; often it will print in purple or green and vary within a print run.

The color beige is displayed to the right.