These
chromonyms are defined as colors in at least one dictionary (mostly
MW3). (Actually there's one fake, for reasons I'll explain someday.) They are all one-word nouns, such as "kelly", which can stand alone, although more usual as "kelly green". For names of two or more words, see Chromonyms 2. Palooka's Great Color Names has color adjectives and multi-word color names. Check out Colleen's chromatica too, and georgielily, who groups by color.
I've tagged single-word color names by color family: red, pink, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple, and white, brown, gray, and black.
There are many oddities in color names:
tarragon and
tarragona are different colors, as are
aurora and
aurore,
winter green and
wintergreen, and
yellow stone and
yellowstone.
Melon and
lemon are anagrams, as are
ebon and
bone, which are also antonyms.
Greige and
griege are anagrams and homonyms, but not synonyms.
Puce and
puke are different colors, that, according to
OED2, are not etymologically related.
Thanks to the folks at Stevenson Hall who helped compile an early version of this list in 1980 or 1981.