Armenian Colors: A Complete Vocabulary Guide

Colors are some of the most useful descriptive words in any language — they show up constantly, from describing clothes to talking about a sunset. Here's the full set in Armenian.

The basics

• կարմիր (kar-mir) — red
• կապույտ (ka-puyt) — blue
• դեղին (de-ghin) — yellow
• կանաչ (ka-nach) — green
• սպիտակ (spi-tak) — white
• սև (sev) — black
• նարնջագույն (nar-nja-guyn) — orange
• մանուշակագույն (ma-nu-sha-ka-guyn) — purple

Beyond the basics

• վարդագույն (var-da-guyn) — pink (literally "rose-colored")
• շագանակագույն (sha-ga-na-ka-guyn) — brown
• մոխրագույն (mokh-ra-guyn) — gray
• ոսկեգույն (vos-ke-guyn) — golden

A pattern worth noticing

You've probably spotted it already — many Armenian color words end in -գույն (guyn), which literally means "color." That's not a coincidence: several colors are built as "[something]-colored" rather than having a fully separate root word, similar to how English sometimes says "rose-colored" instead of just "pink." Once you notice this pattern, new color words become much easier to guess and remember.

Using colors in a sentence

Armenian adjectives (including colors) typically come before the noun they describe, just like in English — so "կարմիր տուն" is simply "red house," in the same word order you'd expect. That makes colors one of the easier vocabulary categories to start actively using in real sentences right away.

Keep building your vocabulary

Colors are just one category — see our full Armenian vocabulary page for greetings, numbers, family, and food words, or work through 50 basic Armenian words every beginner should know for a broader starting set.