Change colour of descriptive list items for whole document

Question

I would like to change the default colour of the descriptive list terms in the preamble of my doc so as to save me doing it in-line on a case by case basis.

At the moment I am doing this to change the colour of descriptive list terms:

\begin{description}
\item[{\color{grey}{Term}}] Definition blah blah.
\end{description}

Can someone give me some code that will change the colour throughout the document of these parts of the text to save me doing it one by one. Find and replace doesn't work because each term is obviously unique. Thank you

Answer 1

Use the enumitem package:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{xcolor}
\usepackage{enumitem}
\setlist[description]{format=\textcolor{gray}} %\color{gray} works too
\begin{document}
Blah-blah
\begin{description}
\item[Term] Definition blah blah.
\end{description}
Blah-blah
\end{document}

Answer 2

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{xcolor}
\let\svdescription\description
\let\svenddescription\enddescription
\renewenvironment{description}{%
  \svdescription%
  \let\svitem\item%
  \renewcommand\item[1][]{\svitem[\textcolor{gray}{##1}]}%
  }{
  \svenddescription%
  }
\begin{document}
Blah-blah
\begin{description}
\item[Term] Definition blah blah.
\end{description}
Blah-blah
\end{document}

If you want the color selectable, by way of \renewcommand\descriptioncolor{red}:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{xcolor}
\let\svdescription\description
\let\svenddescription\enddescription
\renewenvironment{description}{%
  \svdescription%
  \let\svitem\item%
  \renewcommand\item[1][]{\svitem[\textcolor{\descriptioncolor}{##1}]}%
  }{
  \svenddescription%
  }
\newcommand\descriptioncolor{gray}
\begin{document}
Blah-blah
\begin{description}
\item[Term] Definition blah blah.
\end{description}
Blah-blah
\renewcommand\descriptioncolor{red}
\begin{description}
\item[Term] Definition blah blah.
\end{description}
\end{document}