Iro
The Japanese word for colour.
Also: 色, shiki
Iro is written with a character borrowed from Chinese, which can also be read shiki or shoku in compound words. Besides colour, it has meant facial expression, appearance and, in older usage, love and desire. Japanese has a large stock of traditional colour names taken from plants, animals and dyes, such as sakura-iro, cherry-blossom pink, and nezumi-iro, mouse grey. The doubled form iroiro means various, literally colour upon colour. The old word ao covered both blue and green, which is why a green traffic light is still called ao.