Maize (color)
color
The shade maize or corn refers to a specific tone of yellow; it is named for the cereal of the same name—maize (called corn in the United States and Canada). In public usage, maize can be applied to a variety of shades, ranging from light yellow to a dark shade that borders on orange, since the color of maize (the actual corn) may vary.
The first recorded use of maize as a color name in English was in 1861.
Usage
Biology
"Light maize in color, this wildflower is found only now and then in our area, and treasured for its rarity. The three clumps, two near the east fence under a thriving red-stemmed dogwood and one beside a weathered stump, gave us a thrill last spring with their first buds."
Chemistry
"For slow cases, one can use the method... in which a solution of thymol blue has had its pH value adjusted so that it is maize in color and any slight increase in the acidity which makes the solution turn blue."
Sports
Maize is one of the two colors used by the University of Michigan Wolverines, the other being blue. While the actual shade of yellow used has varied over time, it always approaches the color of corn. In 1867, a group of University of Michigan students declared “azure blue” and “maize” the official colors of the school. Maize was chosen by the students because it contrasted nicely with the blue, which had been an unofficial color of the university since its founding. However, in the following years, a problem arose that there was no standard for the exact hue of yellow used by the school.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Maize (color)” as color. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as color. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 30, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q3843568. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1861 and 1867.
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This entry incorporates text from “Maize (color)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.