From this affiliation, in Christianity, yellow became the color of deceit and cowardice. This is a possible origin of the American phrase, “yellow belly”.
Yellow, the lightest hue of the spectrum, signifies joy, happiness, betrayal, optimism, caution, idealism, imagination, hope, sunshine, summer, gold, philosophy, dishonesty, cowardice, jealousy, covetousness, deceit, illness, hazard and friendship.
Yellow-bellied "cowardly" is from 1924, probably a semi-rhyming reduplication of yellow; earlier yellow-belly was a sailor's name for a half-caste (1867) and a Texas term for Mexican soldiers (1842, based on the color of their uniforms).
The combination of connotations associated with yellow (cowardice, treason) and the guts (heroism, stamina, grit) is apparent. A person with guts is known to have courage which leads to heroism. By associating yellow with the gut, the term “yellow-bellied coward” became a way of saying that a person lacks courage.
Given its supremely vibrant hue, yellow is associated with joy, happiness, and humor. However, it's also sometimes used to represent jealousy and fear.
Researchers say anxious and distressed people choose gray shades to describe their mood. Healthy people prefer yellow. Both groups said their favorite color was blue. These are tendencies, not across-the-board preferences. Click on the image for a larger version.
Nervous Colors
Also known as cool colors, they're often linked to fear and anxiety. The typical nervous colors include gray, purple, and blue. Gray, for instance, evokes feelings of apathy, sadness, and boredom.
In old folk medicine, courage was associated with the liver. Liver disease (of course) products jaundice, which gives a distinct yellow hue to skin and eyes, and so therefore cowardice became associated with the same condition. Thus we get "yellow bellied" and "lily livered" to indicate a lack of courage.
Even in the different local cultures yellow has taken on multiple meanings and values: in Japan, for example, it is the colour of courage, in many African countries it is linked to wealth and success, in India it is the colour of merchants.
One TikTok user summarized the meaning as “someone you can't live without”. The comments on videos involving the “my yellow” TikTok trend are also flooded with positivity, even if they don't know the person. “
It's the kind of word cowboys use, partner. This word originally applied to birds that literally have a yellow belly, like the yellow-bellied sapsucker. From there, it came to mean an insult for cowards. If you're afraid to ask someone on a date, you're yellow-bellied.
Yellow is the color of ambivalence and contradiction; the color associated with optimism and amusement; but also with betrayal, duplicity, and jealousy.
The word “yellow” comes from the Old English term for yellow, “geolu.”
The white feather is a widely recognised propaganda symbol. It has, among other things, represented cowardice or conscientious pacifism; as in A. E. W. Mason's 1902 book, The Four Feathers.
In graph theory, a weak coloring is a special case of a graph labeling. A weak k-coloring of a graph G = (V, E) assigns a color c(v) ∈ {1, 2, ..., k} to each vertex v ∈ V, such that each non-isolated vertex is adjacent to at least one vertex with different color.
Sad colors are usually dark, muted and neutral, such as gray, brown, beige and certain shades of blue and green. In Western cultures, black is often considered the color of mourning, whereas in some East Asian countries, it's white.
Some positive emotions associated with yellow include happiness, excitement, originality, enthusiasm, confidence, hope, and creativity. Negative feelings connected to yellow are cowardice, illness, caution, betrayal, egotism, and anxiety ("Yellow | Color Psychology").
Yellow also symbolizes negative traits, such as cowardice, deceit, betrayal and faithlessness. When someone turns tail and flees from a conflict, that person may be labeled “yellow.” Yellow can also be the color of illness, such as the yellow skin of a jaundiced individual.
For example, in Hallock's study, he discovered that purple is one of men's least favorite colors, but it's also a color they associate with the concepts of bravery and courage. This is interesting in that it underscores the subjective nature of color perception.
The color yellow can be bright and intense, which is perhaps why it can often invoke such strong feelings. Yellow can quickly grab attention, but it can also be abrasive when overused. It can appear warm and bright, yet it can also lead to visual fatigue.
Dingy (or dirty) yellow: A muted yellow that looks dirty can have negative associations such as decay, sickness, or caution.
Xanthophobia, fear of the color yellow.
It is known that red and yellow make you feel uncomfortable. According to theory behind color, red is associated with violence and yellow is associated with insecurity. These colors make us move faster which inherently allows fast-food to be that much more convenient.
The color black is associated with authority and power. Black causes feelings of intimidation and control. In certain contexts, can also seem sophisticated and sleek to its viewers.
Red. This powerful color is associated with excitement, energy, power, fearlessness, and passion.