Colorway?

[scubasinger]

Just out of curiosity, why do we use 'colorway' as opposed to simply 'color'?

I can somewhat see it if referring to a skein that has multiple colors, but I recently saw the term in a post applied to a single-color yarn.

Just curious. Outside of the knitting community, I've never encountered the term.

[Silver]

Colorway is an artistic term referring to the coloration of a particular design. It's become synonymous with the colors in a particular thread, yarn or fabric, but is still used to refer to the color scheme of things like interior design, publications, and wallpaper as well.