Red
Related: danger - blood - love - red-light district - more colors
Usage, symbolism, and colloquial expressions
- Red catches people's attention, and is often used to indicate danger or emergency.
- Red is the color of heat and fire. Taps for hot water are often labeled red. Red is commonly the color of fire alarm boxes, fire extinguishers, and the firefighter profession itself.
- Red denotes "stop" in, for instance, stop signs, traffic signals, brake lights, or the flashing lights of a school bus.
- Red is the color of blood, and a Red Cross, Red Crescent or Red Crystal flag signify medical personnel, facilities, or equipment, or the Geneva Conventions.
- Red is the traditional color of race cars sponsored by Italian companies.
- In Western religion, red represents the color of fire and so symbolizes the presence of God. It is the liturgical color for Pentecost. It is also considered the color of the Church, since red can also symbolize the blood of martyrs. It is sometimes used for Holy Thursday and during Eastertide. In Catholic tradition it is used for Palm Sunday in anticipation of the death of Jesus.
- Red can sometimes symbolize evil in any kind of work that involves a villain.
- Being the color of blood, red was associated with the Roman mythology god of war, Mars, and the reddish planet Mars became named after him. The phrase "red-blooded" describes someone who is audacious, robust, or virile; it is sometimes used to contrast with a cold or effete "blue blood" although the terms are unrelated in origin.
- Red is the color of sex and romance, (because of its association with blood, which is responsible for arousal) thus the red of a Valentine heart and of a "red-light district". Paradoxically, it also denotes anger, as in the expression seeing red, or embarrassment, as in being red-faced (many of these effects themselves caused by the blood rushing to the brain from adrenaline).
--http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red#Usage.2C_symbolism.2C_and_colloquial_expressions [Mar 2006]
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