Quiet Virgo Teal

Latin quietus, at rest — used as a color modifier since the medieval period for hues that read as restrained. Quiet pink, quiet blue: low saturation combined with optical calmness. Sits across the crisp and hushed buckets where the color is present but doesn't ask for attention.

Latin virgo, virgin-or-maiden-of-the-zodiac. As a color modifier, virgo implies a maiden-and-earth-sign-and-Mercury-ruled-mutable-earth quality, the visual register of Hellenic-Virgo-and-Astraea-maiden hand-maiden-and-earth-sign-and-Mercury-ruled-mutable-earth Hellenic-Virgo-and-Astraea-maiden-and-Spica-grain virgo-and-maiden-and-earth-sign surfaces under Hellenic-Virgo-and-Astraea-maiden-and-Spica-grain late-summer-and-August-and-September mutable-earth-sign-light. Sits at the modifier-and-zodiac end of the grid, parallel to leo and libra in usage.

Anas crecca, the small dabbling duck whose male in breeding plumage sports a chestnut head crossed by a glossy green-blue stripe. The color refers to that stripe — the iridescent panel just behind the eye: a saturated, slightly muted blue-green with the optical depth of structural color rather than pigment. Cooler than cypress, warmer than cerulean, with the ornithological specificity of a color named for one feather of one bird.