Definition
To give color is to admit, expressly or by implication in a pleading, that the opposing party has an apparent or colorable right to the thing in dispute — a right that appears valid on its face, even though it is ultimately defeasible or inferior to the pleader's own claim. The pleader who gives color concedes enough of the adversary's position to make the opposition's claim look plausible, while simultaneously asserting facts that defeat or override it.
The concept belongs primarily to the common law system of pleading, where a defendant in certain actions — particularly in trespass — was required to give color to the plaintiff's claim before setting up a justification or title by way of confession and avoidance. Without giving color, the plea was technically defective: the defendant could not simply deny everything, but had to acknowledge the surface legitimacy of the plaintiff's position before asserting why the defendant's own right prevailed.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): To "give color" in ordinary speech means to make something appear more credible, plausible, or vivid — to lend supporting appearance to a claim or story.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): "Color" in this period carried the sense of appearance or semblance, especially a superficial or deceptive appearance of right or authority.
The gap between common and legal meaning is narrow but precise. In common usage, giving color to something merely makes it seem more believable. In law, giving color is a technical pleading act — a formal concession of apparent right in the adversary's claim, not mere rhetorical embellishment. The legal act is structural and procedural; the common act is rhetorical.
Common Confusion
GIVE COLOR vs. COLOR OF LAW: These are related but distinct concepts. "Color of law" refers to the appearance of legal authority — typically in constitutional tort doctrine, where a state actor purports to act under governmental authority. "Give color" is a pleading device requiring formal acknowledgment of an adversary's apparent right. Researchers conflate them because both involve the idea of apparent rather than actual legal status, but they operate in entirely different doctrinal contexts.
GIVE COLOR vs. COLOR OF TITLE: Color of title, relevant in adverse possession, refers to a defective instrument that appears to convey title but does not do so effectively. Giving color is an act of pleading; color of title is a quality of a document. A defendant in a land dispute might give color by acknowledging the plaintiff holds an instrument appearing to convey title, while the defendant asserts a superior claim.
Why It Matters in Research
This term is almost exclusively a creature of common law pleading practice. Researchers encountering it in historical sources — particularly in English reports, early American cases, and treatises from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries — should understand that it signals a specific pleading structure: confession and avoidance. When a historical source says a defendant "gives color," it means the plea has a particular formal architecture that shapes how the court evaluates the sufficiency of the pleading.
The practical significance of giving color largely disappeared with the abolition of common law forms of action and the adoption of code pleading in the nineteenth century and civil rules pleading in the twentieth. Researchers reading modern opinions that use the phrase are almost certainly encountering either historical analysis, quotation from older authority, or loose use of "color" as a general concept of apparent right. The technical pleading meaning should not be imported into modern procedural analysis.
Corpus researchers should note: the term appears with much greater frequency in pre-1850 English and American reports than in modern materials. Searching for "give color" without filtering by era will surface the historical pleading sense almost exclusively. Cross-searching with "trespass," "confession and avoidance," and "plea of justification" will locate the relevant cluster of materials.
Historical Dictionary Support
Black's Law Dictionary defines giving color as admitting an apparent or colorable right in the opposite party, directing the reader to the main entry for COLOR. This is correct as far as it goes, but the brevity of the entry understates the procedural significance of the requirement in common law pleading. Historical treatises on pleading — Chitty's Pleading is the standard reference — explain in detail that a plea in justification had to give color, meaning it had to acknowledge enough of the plaintiff's apparent right to render the plea sensible as a response. A plea that failed to give color could be challenged as bad in form.
What Black's and similar dictionary entries miss is the generative function: giving color was not merely a concession but a pleading technique that defined the scope of the legal controversy. By specifying what apparent right the opponent had, the pleader fixed the issue that the court had to resolve. This structural role is better understood through treatise literature than through dictionary definitions alone.
Jurisdictional Note
The requirement to give color was a feature of English common law pleading practice adopted in early American courts. As American jurisdictions moved to code pleading beginning with New York's Field Code of 1848, and later to notice pleading under the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, the technical requirement dissolved. Researchers should not expect to find operative modern doctrine on this point in any U.S. jurisdiction.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
Property Law Encyclopedia: Adverse Possession — Color of Title and Claim of Right (property_87). While that entry addresses color of title rather than the pleading act of giving color, it provides essential context for understanding how "color" functions as a legal concept in the domain of competing property claims — the most common setting in which giving color appeared in practice.