Electrifying Bluff Turquoise

Greek ēléktron, amber — present-participle of electrify, named after the static-electricity property of rubbed amber. As a color modifier, electrifying implies a saturated-and-shocking-and-active quality, the bright color of Tesla-coil high-voltage atmospheric-discharge emission. Sits at the bright-and-active end of the grid, parallel to charged and neon in usage.

Middle Dutch blaf, broad-and-flat. As a color modifier, bluff implies a high-river-bank quality, the visual register of Mississippi-and-Missouri-River-Bluffs tall sediment-and-loess river-bank cliff-face surfaces in late-afternoon Mississippi-and-Missouri-River raking light. Sits at the modifier-and-place end of the grid, parallel to cliff and crag in usage.

The hydrated copper-aluminum phosphate mined in Persia and the American Southwest for thousands of years — the firuze of Iran, the chalchihuitl of Mesoamerica, the heart of Pueblo and Navajo silverwork. The color refers to a fine Sleeping Beauty turquoise from Arizona: a saturated, slightly green-shifted blue with the slight matrix of host-rock veining. Brighter than persian, lighter than cerulean.