Phrase guide

color charge

noun · 1 senses · updated from the 2026-07-25 local source snapshot

Definitions and examples are grouped by meaning. Pronunciation, history, word forms, translations, descendants, synonyms, antonyms, derived terms, and related words appear whenever the source provides them.

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Pronunciation

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noun

Meaning 1

In the Standard Model of particle physics, a property possessed by quarks, antiquarks, and gluons that determine rules for how these particles may interact. There are three pairs of colors and anticolors: red, green, blue, and their corresponding anti-colors (e.g. anti-red).

Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract

Usage: US, countable, particle, uncountable

Qualifier: nuclear physics

Topics: natural-sciences, physical-sciences, physics

No example sentence was provided for this meaning.

Meaning relationships

Synonyms: none provided

Antonyms: none provided

History

Etymology

From a loose analogy to the set of primary colors. The charge property has nothing to do with visible color.

Word forms

Inflections and variants

color charges — plural
colour charge — alternative, UK

Word family

Derived and related words

Derived: none provided

Related: color force, colour force, nuclear force, residual strong force, strong force, strong interaction, strong nuclear force, strong nuclear interaction

Semantic map

Other relationships

Sources

Where this information comes from

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