Green

Green is Wood's colour and carries the reading of growth and of spring — with a specific secondary association in headwear. Green belongs to the Wood-and-east quarter of the five-colour system. Its popular associations are less uniformly positive than red's.

It depends on the setting rather than on the color alone. Green is Wood's colour and carries the reading of growth and of spring — with a specific secondary association in headwear. The green-hat convention is a rare case of a colour acquiring a meaning almost entirely through one idiom, and it is strong enough to affect modern usage.

Sources note the specific convention by which a green hat marked a cuckolded husband, which gives the colour a colloquial reading that sits awkwardly beside its spring association. It is grouped under Wood (木) in the five-element system.