Hygienic Glee Teal

Greek hygieinós, healthful — derived from Hygieia (goddess of health). As a color modifier, hygienic implies a clear-and-medical-clean quality, the crisp color of Mid-Century-Modern clinical-and-hospital interior-architecture surfaces. Sits at the crisp-and-clean end of the grid, parallel to sanitary and sterile in usage.

Old English glēo, music-or-merriment. As a color modifier, glee implies a singing-and-merry-and-bubbling quality, the visual register of Elizabethan-glee-club-and-madrigal-glee hand-singing-and-merry-and-bubbling Elizabethan-glee-club-and-madrigal-and-catch-singing gleeful-and-singing-and-merry-and-bubbling surfaces under Elizabethan-glee-club-and-madrigal-and-catch-singing parlor-and-tavern-and-court candlelit-music-light. Sits at the modifier-and-mood end of the grid, parallel to mirth and merry 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.