Which of the following is an example of a tertiary color?

• A. Green
• B. Violet
• C. Red-Orange
• D. Blue-Orange

Answer: (C)

A tertiary color comes from mixing a primary color with the secondary color that sits next to it on the color wheel. The primary colors are red, blue, and yellow; the secondaries are orange (red+yellow), green (blue+yellow), and violet (blue+red). A true tertiary lies between a primary and its neighboring secondary. Red-orange is between red and orange, so it’s a quintessential tertiary color. Green and violet are secondaries themselves, not tertiary. Blue-orange isn’t listed as a standard tertiary color because orange is already a mix of red and yellow, and blue+orange isn’t the usual primary-adjacent pairing defined for tertiary colors. So red-orange best fits the category.