farbiger

Farbiger is a German adjective form meaning colored or colored-in, with the base adjective farbig. In standard usage, farbig is the common form, and farbiger is the attributive inflected form used before a noun, as in ein farbiger Mantel (more correctly, ein farbiger Mantel in formal labeling) or der farbige Stoff; the ending -er marks the masculine nominative singular when declined.

Beyond its ordinary descriptive sense, farbiger can rarely occur as a noun in older or stylistically marked texts, where it would refer to a “colored person.” Today this usage is uncommon and can be considered outdated or potentially offensive, depending on context and intent. In contemporary German, more neutral phrasing is preferred when describing color or appearance rather than labeling people by color.

In multilingual or historical contexts, the term may appear in translations or reflections on race in South Africa, where the English word Coloured referred to a legally defined category under apartheid. The German-language equivalent farbiger may be used in translations or older German texts to convey that sense, but it is not a standard or widely used label in modern German discourse.

Apart from these social connotations, the primary, contemporary use of farbiger remains its grammatical function as an inflected adjective meaning colored or multicolored, applicable to objects such as fabrics, birds, or paintings.