Plumb Shag Teal

Latin plumbum, lead — referring to the lead-weighted plumb-line of pre-modern carpentry. As a color modifier, plumb implies a clear-and-vertical-true quality where the hue carries the visual register of gravity-aligned-and-perfectly-vertical surface. Sits at the crisp-and-balanced end of the grid, parallel to level and squared in usage.

Old Norse skagg, beard / rough-hair. As a color modifier, shag implies a rough-and-shaggy-hair-or-pile quality, the visual register of Mid-Century-Modern-and-1970s-shag-rug hand-tufted-and-rough-and-shaggy wool-and-yarn-and-pile Mid-Century-Modern-and-1970s shag-rug surfaces under Mid-Century-Modern-and-1970s shag-rug interior-decoration light. Sits at the modifier-and-texture end of the grid, parallel to fuzz and fluff 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.