Hygienic Lovage 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.

Latin levisticum, medieval-physic-garden-herb. As a color modifier, lovage implies a medieval-physic-garden-and-celery-leaf quality, the visual register of medieval-physic-garden-and-Cluniac-lovage hand-medieval-physic-garden-and-celery-leaf medieval-physic-garden-and-Cluniac-lovage-and-Benedictine-Saint-Gall lovage-and-medieval-physic-garden-and-celery-leaf surfaces under medieval-physic-garden-and-Cluniac-lovage-and-Benedictine-Saint-Gall Cluny-and-Saint-Gall-physic-garden medieval-monastic-light. Sits at the modifier-and-flavor end of the grid, parallel to savory and catnip 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.