a. and sb. [ad. late L. tricolor, -ōrem adj. (Priscian, c. 500), and F. tricolore adj. (often in phr. drapeau tricolore: see A. 2, B. 2).]
A. adj. Having three colors; three-colored.
1. Nat. Hist. (in form tricolor).
1866. Treas. Bot., Tricolor, consisting of three colours.
1900. in B. D. Jackson, Gloss. Bot. Terms.
2. Of a flag, cockade, etc.; esp. of the national flags of France, Italy, and Mexico: see B. 2.
1815. Southey, in Q. Rev., July, 482 (trans. Napoleon). Tear down those colours which the nation has proscribed; mount the tricolour cockade.
1832. trans. Sismondi’s Ital. Rep., xvi. 362. The French general Baraguai d’Hilliers entered the city … and planted … the tricolour banner on St. Mark.
1860. W. G. Clark, in Vac. Tour., 56. [They] made haste to take all the tricolor flags from their windows.
1886. Pall Mall G., 3 July, 8/2. Many … supporters had also donned tricolour rosettes.
B. sb. (Not so used in French.)
1. Gardening (in form tricolor). Short for Amarantus tricolor, a species of amaranth from China, cultivated for its brightly colored leaves, compounded of green, yellow, and red.
1786. Abercrombie, Gard. Assist., 239. Fine balsams, cockscombs, tricolors, etc.
2. A tricolor flag, cockade, etc.; esp. the national flag of France adopted at the Revolution, consisting of equal vertical stripes of blue, white, and red.
1798. Scott, War-song, viii. If ever breath of British gale Shall fan the tri-color [rhyme shore].
1815. Byron, On the Star of ‘the Legion of Honour,’ iv. A rainbow … Of three bright colours. Note, The tri-colour.
1833. Marryat, N. Forster, xli. The French tricolour hardly had time to blow clear.
1837. Carlyle, Fr. Rev., I. V. v. Red and Blue, our old Paris colours: these, once based on a ground of constitutional White, are the famed Tricolor,—which (if Prophecy err not) ‘will go round the world.’
1847. Disraeli, Tancred, IV. ii. The flag of England has beaten even the tricolour.
1855. W. Morris, in Mackail, Life (1899), I. 82. The Russian tricolour, horizontal stripes of blue, red, and white.
1870. Daily News, 1 Dec. An unpretending house … has a sentry at the gate, and a North German tricolour displayed above the garden wall.
