The paper studies phraseologisms with a colorative component in the Russian and English languages. The relevance of the work is conditioned by the comparative research of the languages belonging to different language families as well as by the necessity of analyzing phraseologisms as the elements that most vividly reflect the cultural specificity of ethnic groups. The scientific originality is manifested in the complex analysis of phraseological units. The theoretical importance of the study lies in investigating the problem of phraseological equivalency. The principal research methods are the comparative one and the method of lexicographic analysis