A light gray, black text passes AA
What color is silver?
silver is a light gray: #c0c0c0 in hex, rgb(192 192 192). Black text on it reaches 11.54:1, passing WCAG AAA. Recolor (recolor.page) shows it on a real page below.
Last updated
| Format | Value |
|---|---|
| Keyword | silver |
| Hex | #c0c0c0 |
| RGB | rgb(192 192 192) |
| HSL | hsl(0 0% 75%) |
| OKLCH | oklch(80.8% 0.000 none) |
| Nearest Tailwind color | mauve-300 #d7d0d7, 0.059 away in OKLab |
| White text | 1.82:1: AA fails, AAA fails, large text fails |
| Black text | 11.54:1: AA passes, AAA passes, large text passes |
About silver
In OKLCH terms silver has a lightness of 80.8%, a chroma of 0.000 and no hue, a light gray to the eye. It is one of the 16 named colors that CSS Color 4 traces to the VGA palette, by way of HTML; most of the others came from the X11 color system.
HSL and OKLCH agree on how light it is, 75% and 80.8%. Among the CSS keywords, lightsteelblue (#b0c4de) comes closest at 0.043 in OKLab, close enough to stand in for it in a sketch.
For text, silver wants black: 11.54:1 clears even AAA's 7:1, and white at 1.82:1 fails AA. In the hue-sorted table of named colors it sits between lightgray and darkgray.
In Tailwind CSS 4.3.3 the nearest default color is mauve-300 (#d7d0d7), 0.059 away in OKLab; for the exact color, an arbitrary value such as bg-[#c0c0c0] works.
Tints and shades
- #f4f4f4
- #eaeaea
- #dfdfdf
- #d5d5d5
- #cacaca
- #c0c0c0
- #969696
- #6e6e6e
- #494949
- #262626
- #080808
From light to dark: 5 toward white and 5 toward black, mixed in OKLCH a sixth of the way at a time with the hue kept. A step that would repeat its neighbor is left out.
A palette around it
- #c0c0c0
- #605a80
- #fce7ff
- #9e6b99
- #25181d
Locked as the first of five swatches, silver gets #605a80, #fce7ff, #9e6b99, #25181d from Recolor's generator, an analogous palette, hues next to each other on the wheel. The seed is its hex, so the palette stays the same. Open it in Recolor.
Using silver
As a text color, silver on a black page gives the same 11.54:1.
.notice {
background-color: silver; /* #c0c0c0 */
color: black; /* 11.54:1 */
}Common questions
Does white text pass WCAG AA on silver?
No. White text measures 1.82:1 on silver, under AA's 4.5:1; black text measures 11.54:1 and passes.
Can silver be written in OKLCH?
Yes: oklch(80.8% 0.000 none), computed from #c0c0c0. A named color is an sRGB color, so its OKLCH value converts back to the same hex.
Is there a named color close to silver?
Yes: lightsteelblue (#b0c4de) is the nearest, 0.043 away in OKLab, then thistle at 0.051.