Seeing a color in nature is one thing. Recreating colors artificially is an entirely different challenge—one with some unexpectedly high stakes. Practically anything human-made is of a certain color ...

The lexicographer Kory Stamper’s “True Color” is a sneakily insightful philosophical treatise on what it means to define anything at all. By Deirdre Mask Deirdre Mask is the author of “The Address ...