Sterile Quay Teal

Latin sterilis, barren / not-fertile — sharing root with Greek steiros (barren). As a color modifier, sterile implies a clear-and-medical-clean-and-stripped quality, the crisp color of operating-theater surgical-environment white-and-stainless-steel surfaces. Sits at the crisp-and-clean end of the grid, parallel to sanitary and hygienic in usage.

Old French quai, wharf. As a color modifier, quay implies a stone-built-harbor quality, the visual register of Cornish-and-Mediterranean stone-built fishing-harbor-and-trading-port quay-side stone-paved-and-iron-bollard surfaces in early-morning Mediterranean-and-Cornish-fishing-harbor light. Sits at the modifier-and-place end of the grid, parallel to wharf and jetty 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.