Earnest Throb Forest

Old English eornost, seriousness, zeal. Used as a color modifier since the nineteenth century for hues that read as committed but unshowy — the working blues of denim, the deep greens of Quaker meetinghouses. Sits in the bold-and-quiet corner of the grid, slightly less luminous than resolute and slightly less institutional than imperial.

Middle English throbben, to-beat-strongly. As a color modifier, throb implies a pulsing-and-beating-and-rhythmic quality, the visual register of racing-pulse-and-temple-throb hand-pulsing-and-beating-and-rhythmic racing-pulse-and-temple-throb-and-heartbeat throbbed-and-pulsing-and-beating-and-rhythmic surfaces under racing-pulse-and-temple-throb-and-heartbeat fevered-and-quickened-and-rhythmic candlelit-bedside-light. Sits at the modifier-and-mood end of the grid, parallel to pang and pulse in usage.

The dense canopy of a temperate or tropical woodland — oak, beech, pine, eucalyptus, mahogany — wherever leaves close above to filter the light below. Forest green refers to the average reflectance of a healthy mid-summer canopy seen from below: a saturated, slightly muted green with the matte finish of layered chlorophyll. Deeper than fern, cooler than olive, with the ecological weight of a word that has named every wooded biome on Earth.