A function that takes a vector of color names and matches it against the xkcdcolors list of color names using edit distance.

fuzzycolor.R

# fuzzycolor() takes a vector of color names and matches it against the
# xkcdcolors list of color names using edit distance. fuzzycolor() always
# returns a vector of hex color strings, perhaps the ones you wanted...
fuzzycolor <- function(color_names) {
  library(xkcdcolors)
  names_distance <- adist(color_names, xcolors(), ignore.case = TRUE, partial = TRUE)
  xkcd_colors <- xcolors()[ apply(names_distance, 1, which.min) ]
  hex_colors <- name2color(xkcd_colors)
  names(hex_colors) <- xkcd_colors
  hex_colors
}

# Here's how you can use it
cols <- fuzzycolor(c("red", "darkerred", "minty fresh", "North sea", "spinach"))
cols
#+ fig.height=3, fig.width=9
barplot(rep(1, length(cols)), names.arg = names(cols), col = cols)