• METALS

  ARGENT

  white. Can be represented in black and white as a blank field.

  OR

  yellow. Can be represented in black and white as a random pattern of dots.

• COLORS

  AZURE

  blue. Can be represented in black and white as horizontal stripes.

  GULES

  red. Can be represented in black and white as vertical stripes.

  SABLE

  black. Can be represented in black and white as perpendicular horizontal and vertical hatchings.

  VERT

  green. Can be represented in black and white as negatively sloping stripes.

  PURPURE

  purple. Can be represented in black and white as positively sloping stripes.

• FURS

  ERMINE

  a white field with a regular pattern of black ermine spots.

  VAIR

  a row of small bell-shaped items with straight bottoms. The bottoms of the next row are facing the bottoms of the previous, and then the pattern repeats. Rows alternate between blue and white.

  POTENT

  the same as Vair, only with interlocking "T"s instead of bells. Again, blue and white.

• STAINS

  MURREY
  maroon.
  SANGUINE
  blood-red.
  TENNE, TAWNY, or ORANGE
  orange.

  OTHER

  BLEU CELESTE

  sky-blue.

  CENDREÉ

  dark grey; ash-colored.

  CARNATION

  flesh tones.

  BRUNÂTRE

  brown.

  ROSE

  pink.

	Argent means white in heraldry. Along with Or, Argent is considered a metal and not a color. [top]
	Or is the metal Yellow in heraldry. It is nearly always capitalized so as to avoid confusion with the conjunction "or." Some go so far as to capitalize all the tinctures. [top]
	Azure is the heraldic term for the color blue. It comes from the Arabic word "lazward," for Lapis Lazuli, the blue semiprecious stone. [top]
	Gules, the heraldic color red, has meant "red" since 1165. In ealier times, words such as rough, vermeil, and sinople meant "red." The etymology of the word is debatable. "Gules" resembles "guele," from the medeival Latin "gula" - a carnivorous animal's mouth. By the mid-12th century, "guele" meant "mouth;" some claim "guele" originally indicated the small strips of fur trim on fur coats around the neck and wrists. These strips were usually made of marten fur, but the fur would have to have been dyed, since marten fur is a yellowish-brown color. If the word were indeed derived from a sort of fur, it would hardly be surprising: vair, ermine, and sable are furs (although Sable isn't in the heraldic sense). Another hypothesis as to the history of the word is from the Persian "gul," which means "rose" (the flower). However, little firm evidence has been found to support this. [top]
	Sable is the heraldic color black in heraldic terms. "Sable" is the name of a fur, but note that Sable is a "color," not a "fur." [top]
	Vert, the heraldic color green, has quite a straightforward Anglo-Norman history, since the word "vert" means green in French, from the Latin "viridis." However, the French do not use the name "vert" for the heraldic color green. Until the mid-14th century, the French did use the word, but it was progressively replaced by "sinope" or "sinople" - a city in Asia Minor where the clay was a red-ochre color. Now French blazons use "sinople." The reasoning is mostly unknown. Perhaps it coul dhave changed to avoid confusion over "vert" and "vair", which sound similar in French. Or it could have been a general movement of heralds to make their language less comprehensible to the common laypeople. [top]
	Purpure, the heraldic color purple, is not as firmly established as a tincture as one might think. To begin with, it is very rare - only 200 arms in all Europe have been found that use purpure. However, enough records have been found to prove its usage. The question is, exactly what color is it? Until the early 15th century, purpure was a grey-brown color. Heraldic artists later thought this was due to pigment deterioration, but contemporary writings make it clear that purpure was made up of four equally proportionate colors. It is possible that in the 16th century, people thought of purpure as the Roman purple, and the color, rare as it was, changed to accomodate the word, not vice versa. So where did the grey-brown come from, and why was "purpure" applied to it? Until the 1260-70s there was a color "bis," which disappears precisely when the term "purpure" became common. It is obvious that Bis was replaced by Purpure, but how? In medeival French, "Pourpre" or "porpre" was not a color at all, but a fabric. It could be tinted different colors, such as "porpre verte," etc. The most common type of this fabris was a low-quality material called "porpre bis." Over time "porpre" and "bis" became synonymous, until "porpre" ("purpure") completely replaced Bis. [top]
	Ermine in heraldry is a white field with a regular pattern of black ermine spots. It is the fur of the small animal ermine, whose fur is brown on top and yellowish white on bottom; but they turn white during the winter except for the tip of the tail, which is black. Then when a coat was made of the fur, the tip of the tail was left on as a mark of authenticacy, so the finished product would have black marks at regular intervals. This pattern is imitated in heraldry. Althought the actual design of the black spots varies over time and place, it is usually now depicted as three dots arranged in a triangle, with a tail extending down and flaring out slightly. The spot itself is soemtiems used as a charge of its own (Lloyd, bishop of Worcester 1700-17: Argent a chevron between 3 crows sable, in each beak an ermine spot). [top]
	Vair is a field consisting of rows. The first row is a line of small bell shapes with straight bottoms, and the next row of bells is upside down, so that the bottoms of both rows line up, and so on. In basic Vair, the rows alternate between blue and white. Old depictions show bars of blue and white being divided by alternating straight and wavy lines. This was simply blazoned "Vair," but now it is usually (but not always) blazoned as "Vair ancient." Vair itself is likely to have originated from the hides of white and blue-gray squirrels being sewn together. Another form of Vair is called Counter-Vair, which is the same except that instead of the rows alternating colors, the columns do. [top]
	Potent follows the same rules as Vair, except that interlocking T shapes are used instead of bells. The T's are seen as being shaped as crutch heads, or perhaps a badly drawn depiction of Vair. In early times it was often blazoned "Vair Potent." Potent itself is relatively rare, but Counter-Potent is seen from time to time. [top]
	Tenne (or Tawny)is generally a bright brown, an orange, or a tawny color. It is supposed to represent an orange color, though in African heraldry "orange" is a different color. [top]
	Bleu Celeste is sky-blue, and is not technically a color or a metal in heraldry. It is quite rare until after WWII, when many coats of arms in England adopted it to show some relation to the Royal Air Force. Post-WWII bleu-celeste is depicted as a darker shade than it was in prior times, during which it was so light as to be treated as a metal rather than a color when applying the tincture rule. [top]
	Brunâtre, a brown color, is very rare but can be seen in the arms of Simon Bolivar. Colors such as Brunâtre are difficult to distinguish as colors, because a horse termed "brunatre" could also be blazoned "proper." (Colors such as Rose and Cendreé have the same circumstances.) [top]

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