palette
NounOpen English WordNet
Noun (3)
- the range of colour characteristic of a particular artist or painting or school of artSynonyms: palletType of scope, range
- board that provides a flat surface on which artists mix paints and the range of colors usedSynonyms: palletType of board
- one of the rounded armor plates at the armpits of a suit of armorSynonyms: palletteType of armor plate, armour platePart of body armor, body armour
What does it mean? Question 1 of today’s quiz
Webster's Dictionary (1913)
Origin: See Pallet a thin board.
1. Painting A thin, oval or square board, or tablet, with a thumb hole at one end for holding it, on which a painter lays and mixes his pigments. Hence, any other object, usually one with a flat surface, used for the same purpose. [Written also pallet.]
2. Hence: The complete set of colors used by an artist or other person in creating an image, in any medium. The meaning of this term has been extended in modern times to include the set of colors used in a particular computer application, or the complete set of of colors available in computer displays or printing techniques.
3. Hence: The complete range of resources and techniques used in any art, such as music.
4. Anc. Armor One of the plates covering the points of junction at the bend of the shoulders and elbows. Fred. William Fairholt
5. Mechanics A breastplate for a breast drill.
Palette knife, a knife with a very flexible steel blade and no cutting edge, rounded at the end, used by painters to mix colors on the grinding slab or palette. — To set the palette Painting, to lay upon it the required pigments in a certain order, according to the intended use of them in a picture. Fred. William Fairholt
Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913), from GCIDE 0.54 · with additions: GCIDE editors
Free On-line Dictionary of Computing
<graphics, hardware> (colour look-up table, CLUT) A device which converts the logical colour numbers stored in each pixel of video memory into physical colours, normally represented as RGB triplets, that can be displayed on the monitor. The palette is simply a block of fast RAM which is addressed by the logical colour and whose output is split into the red, green and blue levels which drive the actual display (e.g. CRT).
The number of entries (logical colours) in the palette is the total number of colours which can appear on screen simultaneously. The width of each entry determines the number of colours which the palette can be set to produce.
A common example would be a palette of 256 colours (i.e. addressed by eight-bit pixel values) where each colour can be chosen from a total of 16.7 million colours (i.e. eight bits output for each of red, green and blue).
Changes to the palette affect the whole screen at once and can be used to produce special effects which would be much slower to produce by updating pixels.
(1997-06-03)