Tinctures (heraldic colours)
The colours of heraldry: two metals, or (gold) and argent (silver), five colours, azure (blue), gules (red), sable (black), vert (green) and purpure (purple), and furs such as ermine and vair. The rule of tincture forbids metal on metal and colour on colour.
Meaning
Heraldry calls its colours tinctures. Boutell counts two metals, five colours and eight furs in English heraldry; the Heraldry Society notes that gold is the same as yellow and silver the same as white. There are no fixed shades. The College of Arms says that if a coat is blazoned gules, azure and argent, it is up to the artist to choose the shades, as long as the blue is not too light and the red not too orange, purple or pink. In French heraldry green is sinople.
Origin and history
Britannica explains why some tinctures are rarer than others. When heraldry was shown only on flags, the tinctures were the two metals with red and blue. Black was hard in the early days because it came from an indigo dye that faded until it looked blue; green needed an expensive dye from Sinope on the Black Sea, which is why French heraldry still calls it sinople; purple came from the rare murex shellfish. Furs were added later, first ermine, from the winter stoat, and vair, from the squirrel. The words changed too: Oswald Barron says gold and silver were the armorists’ words until late in the sixteenth century, when “or” and “argent” took over.
The rule of tincture
The first rule of heraldry, Fox-Davies wrote, is that colour may not be placed on colour, nor metal on metal, and it must practically always be kept; the Heraldry Society adds fur on fur. Boutell gives the famous exception, the silver shield of the crusader kings of Jerusalem with its gold crosses, said to have been made deliberately unlike any other ruler’s; the cross itself is on the Jerusalem cross page. Exceptions are rarer than people claim: Dr Woodward, Fox-Davies notes, collected some twenty-six.
Lines and dots for colour
Engravers who could not print colour showed it with lines and dots, the convention drawn here. In Barron’s description, gold is a powdering of dots and silver is left plain; azure is horizontal lines, gules upright lines, and sable both crossed; purple is diagonal lines from sinister to dexter and vert diagonals from dexter to sinister. Who began it is disputed. Barron found it first on a chart of the arms of Brabant published in 1600. Fox-Davies names Francquart in Belgium, about 1623, followed by several rival systems until that of Petra Sancta, of 1638, won out; Boutell dates Petra Sancta’s system to about 1630. None of them liked it. Barron called it disastrous for heraldic art, Boutell said it was never used in an official record, and Fox-Davies noted that the College of Arms keeps its records in colour or “tricked”, drawn in outline with the colours written in.
What do the colours mean?
Nothing fixed. The Heraldry Society says there are no fixed meanings for metals, colours or furs: whoever designed a coat may have meant something by a colour, but that meaning stays in the owner’s mind and does not pass to any other coat. Boutell blamed the heraldry writers who sought a “moral” in every device, and who gave the tinctures a second and third set of names, the planets for the arms of sovereign princes and precious stones for nobles.
Where you’ll see it today
whatdoesthissymbolmean.comFlag of New YorkNew York’s flag is blue with the state arms: Liberty and Justice either side of a shield showing the sun rising behind three mountains over a river with a ship and a sloop, an eagle on a globe above, and the mottoes “Excelsior” and “E pluribus unum” below. The State Law describes every part in heraldic terms but does not say what the parts stand for.Read next
- Next in HeraldryOrdinariesThe ordinaries are heraldry’s simplest charges, broad bands across the shield: the chief across the top, the fess across the middle, the pale down the middle, the bend corner to corner, the chevron, the cross and the saltire. They are among the oldest bearings.
- The same shape in Tarot cardsFour of WandsThe four of wands in the tarot's Minor Arcana: four staves hung with a garland, two women raising nosegays, and a manor house beyond. A. E. Waite read it as country life, repose, harmony and prosperity.
See also
Coat of arms, Family crest, Marks of cadency, Crosses in heraldry, Lion rampant, Eagle displayed.
Sources
- The Handbook to English Heraldry, Charles Boutell, 11th edition, revised by Arthur Charles Fox-Davies, 1914 (Project Gutenberg ebook 23186), Reeves & Turner, via Project Gutenberg, Chapter V, The Tinctures; Law of Tinctures, pp. 40–44
- A Complete Guide to Heraldry, Arthur Charles Fox-Davies, 1909 (Project Gutenberg ebook 41617), T. C. & E. C. Jack, via Project Gutenberg, Chapter VII, The Field of a Shield and the Heraldic Tinctures, pp. 75–77, 86
- Heraldry (1911 Encyclopædia Britannica), Encyclopædia Britannica, 11th edition (1911), vol. 13, article by Oswald Barron, Encyclopædia Britannica, via Wikisource, Tinctures
- Coat of arms, Britannica (Internet Archive copy, 25 August 2026), Encyclopaedia Britannica, article text
- FAQs: heraldry, Resources (Internet Archive copy, 17 May 2026), College of Arms, Q. What are the pantone numbers for the colours used in heraldry?
- Frequently Asked Questions, Carlisle Transportation Products (The Carlstar Group), What are the rules about the tinctures; Where can I find a list of the meanings
The same shape elsewhere
Browse symbols formed from letters and numbers or lines.
Researched, edited and approved by Rory Hansen before publishing. Last reviewed October 10, 2026. How we research
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