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棚子里有一张床板摆着各种题材的小人书，墙边还拉了几根绳子，一本本书翻开搭在上面，五颜六色的，很好看。

This is from the Standard Course Book of HSK5, segment 20.

The 五颜六色 with meaning colorful or multicolored, can it be used even if the number of the colors is more than 6? For example 7? 8? 42?

The opposite: If you want to say multicolored or colorful, can you say 六颜七色？七颜八色？八颜四十二色？

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五颜六色 is a Chinese idiom or set phrase that means "(things in view have) a variety of colors" or simply means "(the display is quite) colorful". As a "set phrase", the words and word order cannot be altered. Another example of set phrases is "七上八下 - be agitated

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    For example, The idiom 四分五裂 cannot be changed in any way, no number can replace 四, and no number can replace 五; 五颜六色 is the same
    – Tang Ho ♦
    Sep 28 at 3:29
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    There are a lot of "idioms" such as that in Chinese. For example, 七手八腳、五穀豐登、四平八穩、四面八方
    – fat penguin
    Sep 28 at 4:30

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