What Colors Mean - Red

We live in a colorful world. In many countries, colors represent various holidays; they are also used to express feelings and enliven language. Find your favorite color and see what it means around the world.

* For the ancient Romans, a red flag was a signal for battle.

* Because of its visibility, stop signs, stoplights, brake lights, and fire equipment are all painted red.

* The ancient Egyptians considered themselves a red race and painted their bodies with red dye for emphasis.

* In Russia, red means beautiful. The Bolsheviks used a red flag as their symbol when they overthrew the tsar in 1917. That is how red became the color of communism.

* In India, red is the symbol for a soldier.

* In South Africa, red is the color of mourning.

* In China, red is the color of good luck and is used as a holiday and wedding color. Chinese babies are given their names at a red-egg ceremony.

* Superstitious people think red frightens the devil.

* A “red-letter day”? is one of special importance and good fortune.

* In Greece, eggs are dyed red for good luck at Easter time.

* To “paint the town red”? is to celebrate.

* Red is the color most commonly found in national flags.

* In the English War of the Roses, red was the color of the House of Lancaster, which defeated the House of York, symbolized by the color white.

* The “Redshirts”? were the soldiers of the Italian leader Garibaldi, who unified modern Italy in the nineteenth century.

* To “see red”? is to be angry.

* A “red herring”? is a distraction, something that takes attention away from the real issue.

* A “red eye”? is an overnight airplane flight.

* If a business is “in the red,”? it is losing money.