Colour

Colour, a term of the ancient rhetoricians, and early adopted into the language of pleading. It was an apparent or prima facie right; and the meaning of the rule, that pleadings in confession and avoidance should give colour, was that they should confess the matter adversely alleged, to such an extent, atleast, as to admit some apparent right in the opposite party, which required to be encountered and avoided by the allegation of new matter colour was either express, i.e., inserted in the pleading, or implied, which was naturally inherent in the structure of the pleading, Steph. Plead. 233. Express colour was abolished by (English) C.L.P. Act, 1852, s. 64.