Off-color

adj

adj ·Uncommon ·College level

Definitions

Adjective
  1. 1
    Of the wrong color.

    "Careful control of mixing at the central point reduces the possibility of off-color paint in some booths, and uniform pressure at the spray guns is easily maintained."

  2. 2
    Dirty, vulgar or obscene, especially in a way that is unpleasant. idiomatic

    "He told an off-color joke."

  3. 3
    Different from usual. idiomatic

    "Since Zappa treats subject matter, dialogue, and song as musical material, Permanent Damage has a casual off-color quality. Permanent Damage and An Evening with Wild Man Fischer were works of oddball sociology as much as they were rock and roll records."

  4. 4
    Feeling mildly unwell. idiomatic

    "I feel a bit off-color today."

Adjective
  1. 1
    humorously vulgar wordnet
  2. 2
    in violation of good taste even verging on the indecent wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
aberrantabnormalabominableatrociousbadbawdy

Example

More examples

"Tom never tells off-color jokes."

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.