English

Noun

colour bar ‎(plural colour bars)

1. The segregation of people of different colour or race, especially any barrier to black people participating in activities with white people.
   • 1994, Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom, Abacus 2010, p. 83:

     That first morning at the firm, a pleasant young white secretary, Miss Lieberman, took me aside and said, ‘Nelson, we have no colour bar here at the law firm.’

   • 2010, Christopher Hitchens, Hitch-22, Atlantic 2011, p. 205:

     In my hometown of Portsmouth there was a riot in 1943, with the locals scorning attempts by American military policemen to enforce a color bar in the pubs.

2. (printing) A pattern of varying tonal density that enables visual and numeric comparisons to be made across multiple printed sheets or pages.

Alternative forms

• color bar