We present and analyse optical and ultraviolet (UV) colours for passive and optically-red Coma cluster galaxies for which we have spectroscopic age and element abundance estimates. Our sample of 150 objects covers a wide range in mass, from giant ellipticals down to the bright end of the dwarf-galaxy regime. Galaxies with ongoing star formation have been removed using strict H{alpha} emission-line criteria. We focus on the colours FUV-i, NUV-i, FUV-NUV, u*-g and g-i. We find that all of these colours are correlated with both luminosity and velocity dispersion at the >5{sigma} level, with FUV-i and FUV-NUV becoming bluer with increasing 'mass' while the other colours become redder. We perform a purely empirical analysis to assess what fraction of the variation in each colour can be accounted for by variations in the average stellar populations, as traced by the optical spectra.

Cone search capability for table J/MNRAS/421/2982/galaxies (Galaxy properties and 10" diameter aperture magnitudes used in the analysis of Section 3 (tables 1 and 2 of the paper))