The History of Word
The origin of the word 'colour' is in Middle English (developed into
Modern English in 16th Century), which actually borrows from
Anglo-Norman French in this case. 'Colour' has many definitions and uses
(About nine, and then a tonne of little bullets). Somewhere between
colonisation, revolution, and the Industrial Revolution, the English
language had no central regulation. Samuel Johnson's Dictionary of the
English Language (1755) is the source of most of the current British
spellings, but American English became somewhat simplified in spelling
during the times between this book's publication and Noah Webster and
his An American Dictionary of the English Language of 1828. Webster was a
large part in changing the spelling of the language because of his
philosophies and strong nationalism. What would've been seen then as the
"correct" spellings have been listed as variants, and still are today.