Rust (color)
red-orange-brown color resembling iron oxide
Rust is a red color resembling iron oxide red. It is a commonly used color on cars and appears roughly the same color as photographic safelights when used over a standard tungsten light source.
The first recorded use of rust as a color name in English was in 1692.
Origin
Rust is named after the resulting phenomenon of the oxidation of iron. The word 'rust' finds its etymological origins in the Proto-Germanic word rusta, which translates to "redness." The word is closely related to the term "ruddy," which also refers to a reddish coloring in an object.
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The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as red-orange-brown color resembling iron oxide. 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 Apr 23, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q543923. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1692.
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This entry incorporates text from “Rust (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.