Yellow (/ˈjɛloʊ/) is the color of gold, butter, or ripe lemons. In the spectrum of light, and in the traditional color wheel used by painters, yellow is located between green and orange.
In optics, yellow is the evoked by light that stimulates both the L and M (long and medium wavelength) cone cells of the retina about equally, with no significant stimulation of the S (short-wavelength) cone cells. Light with a wavelength of 570–590 nm is yellow, as is light with a suitable mixture of red and green. Yellow’s traditional RYB complementary color is purple, violet, or indigo, while its colorimetrically defined complementary color in both RGB and CMYK color spaces is blue.
The word “yellow” comes from the Old English geolu, geolwe, meaning “yellow, yellowish”, derived from the Proto-Germanic word gelwaz. The English term is related to other Germanic words for yellow, namely Scots yella, East Frisian jeel, West Frisian giel, Dutch geel, German gelb, and Swedish gul. According to the Oxford…