chromo

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈkɹəʊməʊ/

• Audio (AU)

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Shortened from chromolithograph.

chromo (plural chromos)

1. (chiefly historical) A color print produced by chromolithography.
   • 1870, Various, Punchinello Vol. 1, No. 21, August 20, 1870‎:

     All Nature is smiling, in fact, with one large, comprehensive smile, exactly like a first-class PRANG chromo with a fresh coat of varnish upon it.

   • 1883, Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens), Life on the Mississippi‎:

     It was manifest that we all felt that we ought to send the poor shoemaker SOMETHING. There was long and thoughtful discussion of this point; and we finally decided to send him a chromo.

   • 1999 February 19, Deanna Isaacs, “On Exhibit: a treasure trove of Mexican pop art”, in Chicago Reader‎:

     The neglected warehouse turned out to be a treasury of calendar art from the 1930s through the 1970s, years when chromo art calendars were a major advertising medium, a vehicle for national pride, and a fixture in nearly every home, business, and school.

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)

chromo (plural chromos)

1. (chiefly Australia) A prostitute.
   • 1970, John Glassco, Memoirs of Montparnasse, New York, published 2007, page 81:

     That dried-up lady snob lived behind lace curtains all her life. She's of no more importance than a chromo.

Shortened from chromodomain.

chromo (not comparable)

1. (genetics) Of or relating to the chromodomain, a protein structural domain associated with chromatin production
   • 1998 April 24, Angus I. Lamond, William C. Earnshaw, “Structure and Function in the Nucleus”, in Science‎, volume 280, number 5363, →DOI, pages 547–553:

     HP1 shares an ~50-amino acid NH 2 -terminal sequence motif, the chromo domain, with polycomb, an important regulatory gene that functions in the stable repression of homeotic genes during Drosophila development (28 ).

   • 2001 April 6, Jun-ichi Nakayama et al., “Role of Histone H3 Lysine 9 Methylation in Epigenetic Control of Heterochromatin Assembly”, in Science‎, volume 292, number 5514, →DOI, pages 110–113:

     To determine whether the conserved domains, the chromo, SET, and cysteine-rich regions, were also critical for Clr4 HMTase activity, we tested mutant Clr4 proteins for HMTase activity.