44 Meanings of the Color Green

John Spacey, July 25, 2021

Green is a pervasive color in nature that is attached to strong symbolism in most cultures. The following are common examples of symbolism, meaning and perceptions of green color. Each is explained in more detail below.

Aliens (from film and fiction)	Banking
Brazil	Camouflage
Christmas	Cool (color temperature)
Dragons & Other Mythical Creatures	Environment
Finances	Gaelic Culture
Go (from traffic lights)	Good Luck
Greed	Growth
Hope	Inexperience
Ireland	Islam
Jamaica	Jealousy
Leprechauns	Life
Medical	Military
Mints	Money
Monsters	Nature
Normal Status (see below)	Permission
Plants	Poison
Refreshing (i.e. minty)	Safety
Sickness	Spring
Success	Summer
Sustainability	Toxic
Water (e.g. green seas)	Wealth
Witchcraft	Youth

Green is associated with youth and inexperience. This likely originated with analogies to Spring. This is also extended to abstract concepts that have a youthful or Spring feel such as hope.

Many shades of green, such as olive drab, have a military feel to them due to their use in camouflage and military uniforms. Green is particularly associated with the army.

Green is symbolic of money, finance and greed due to the green color of the currency of the United States of America. The color green also has a long association with banking in Europe.

Green is associated with medical things as it is traditionally used in medical uniforms. It is also associated with sickness, possibly due to actual conditions that turn the skin green. This may also be a literary device whereby green is used as an unnatural color for human skin that symbolizes emotional states such as jealousy and physical sickness.

Medium green is strongly associated with Christmas when combined with medium red. For this reason, green and red are often thought to clash due to an unintentional Christmas feel.

The perceptual color temperature of green is cool. In other words, humans tend to perceive green things as cool to the touch. This is due to the green elements of nature such as plants and green seas that tend to have a cooling effect.

Green is traditionally associated with jealousy and envy with sayings such as "green with envy." This likely originated with Othello, a 1603 tragedy written by William Shakespeare with the line "Beware, my lord, of jealousy; it is the green-eyed monster which doth mock the meat it feeds on."

Bright greens such as neon green are traditionally associated with poison and toxic things. This may be related to the color of actual historical poisons such as Scheele’s green, a historically popular pigment that contains arsenic.

Green is pervasive in nature and is used to symbolize all things natural and environmental.

Much green symbolism extends from the use of the color in stop lights where it means "go." For example, green is commonly used in communications, reporting and controls to symbolize safety, success and normal status.

Green is considered an important color to Islam where it is associated with paradise.

Green is associated with good luck in Irish folklore.

In many Asian cultures, green is an auspicious color that symbolizes luck and the products of luck such as wealth. Historically, the green colored stone jade was valued in Asia as gold and diamonds were in the West.

Green is a very common color for the flags of nations. A few of these are listed above as examples.

The color psychology of green largely relates to the symbolism of the color. Context is also important. For example, being around green trees may have a very different emotional effect than painting your walls a toxic shade of bright green.

Keep in mind that green isn't a single color but rather a range of color that includes countless variations.

Linguistically, some languages traditionally make no distinction between green and blue. For example, Japanese language historically categorizes greens as blues. If this seems strange to you, this is a result of your cultural background. Categorization of color by culture is somewhat arbitrary. For example, a strong argument can be made that cyan is a foundational color alongside blue and green -- but people tend to perceive cyans as blues or greens.