ENGLISH IDIOMS CONTAINING THE MEANING OF ‘COLOR’

In the provisions of the scientific article the author analyses the transformation of the semantic meaning of the words, describing colors from the point of their neutral meaning to the point of their idiomatic meaning in the contemporary English language.The author observed that while being used in the meaning of 'color', like 'the colors of rainbow' the words, depicting colors demonstrate neutral connotation, while the same 'color' words when entering an idiom may convey negative, positive or neutral connotation.We studied the meanings of the 'color' words relying on the contemporary British and American thesaurus dictionaries, dictionaries of slang and idioms.We also studied how words, depicting colors are used in maritime practice on board ship, where they perform not only the function of signs and directions but also help to avoid misunderstanding on the cultural level between seaman.The intercultural competency is crucial for seafarers that work in multinational crews, which is a common practice nowadays, because the false interpretation of the meanings of 'color' words may lead to drastic negative consequences that may endanger the life of people and cause emergency situations on board.This article is the first attempt of tracing the semantic transformation of originally neutral meaning of 'color' words into their positive, negative or neutral connotations in colloquialisms or idioms.The article also presents the research of the 'color' words used in the marine domain, both in the professional usage and the intercultural communications.We believe that the study presented in this article will be of scientific and practical use for the philologists and people working on ships.Key words: the colors of the rainbow, the idioms with words of 'colors', neutral/positive/negative connotation, historical slang, ship caution signs, safety signs, prohibiting and allowing signs. , , . , , , , , , . , , -, . , , , , , . , , , , , , .