The most common and most likely answer to this crossword clue is the 7 letter word SPECTRA
I've seen this crossword clue in The Guardian
S
P
E
C
T
R
A
More clues leading to the result SPECTRA
- Ghost finally vanishes, joining a series of shades
- Colour ranges: traces possibly including pink, primarily
- Colour ranges for new carpets
- Mould precast in various ranges
- Woven carpets in bands of various colours
- Carpets woven in bands of colour
- Magic carpets seen in rainbows, perhaps
- New carpets in ranges of colours
- Arrays of exotic carpets
- View from top to bottom, reading in between lines
Buddy explains!
The straight part
We know that "Colour ranges" is the straight/definition part of the clue. The straight part is often a synonym or definition, in this case colour ranges = spectra.The cryptic/wordplay part
In cryptic crossword there's often an wordplay/cryptic part as well.This part involves a more complex hint, such as an anagram, homophone, hidden word, etc.
Sadly, We don't have an explanation for this specific crossword clue yet.
What does SPECTRA mean?
SPECTRA noun- A range; a continuous, infinite, one-dimensional set, possibly bounded by extremes.
- Specifically, a range of colours representing light (electromagnetic radiation) of contiguous frequencies; hence electromagnetic spectrum, visible spectrum, ultraviolet spectrum, etc.
- The autism spectrum.
- The pattern of absorption or emission of radiation produced by a substance when subjected to energy (radiation, heat, electricity, etc.).
- The set of eigenvalues of a matrix.
- Of a bounded linear operator A, the set of scalar values λ such that the operator A—λI, where I denotes the identity operator, does not have a bounded inverse; intended as a generalisation of the linear algebra sense.
- (abstract algebra) The set, denoted Spec(R), of all prime ideals of a given ring R, commonly augmented with a Zariski topology and considered as a topological space.
- Specter, apparition.
- The image of something seen that persists after the eyes are closed.