pencil crayon
The standard term in Canadian, UK, and Irish English for what Americans simply call a 'colored pencil' — a pencil filled with colored wax or pigment used for drawing and coloring.
Seen in the wild
Sat down by the tracks last evening and did me this plein air piece 8in by10in original pen,watercolour and pencil crayon on 97lb paper #nelson #trains
also with pencil crayon the texture gets more slippy from the wax so it's a whole different tactile experience
Definitions
The standard term in Canadian, UK, and Irish English for what Americans simply call a 'colored pencil' — a pencil filled with colored wax or pigment used for drawing and coloring. The compound phrase distinguishes it from both regular graphite pencils and waxy crayon sticks. In Canada especially, 'pencil crayon' is the default and unambiguous term, and calling them anything else in a classroom might earn you a puzzled look from the teacher.
She spent the afternoon coloring the map with pencil crayons, using green for the forests and blue for the rivers.
Comments
(Canada, UK, Ireland) A coloured pencil.
“Sat down by the tracks last evening and did me this plein air piece 8in by10in original pen,watercolour and pencil crayon on 97lb paper #nelson #trains”
— Bluesky· May 2026“also with pencil crayon the texture gets more slippy from the wax so it's a whole different tactile experience”
— Bluesky· May 2026
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🇬🇧About British & Irish slang slang
UK and Irish slang — Cockney, Scouse, Geordie, Yorkshire, Glaswegian, Brummie, Welsh, West Country, plus Irish English. Centuries of regional dialects feeding into modern British and Irish street talk.
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