Sterile Lent Teal

Latin sterilis, barren / not-fertile — sharing root with Greek steiros (barren). As a color modifier, sterile implies a clear-and-medical-clean-and-stripped quality, the crisp color of operating-theater surgical-environment white-and-stainless-steel surfaces. Sits at the crisp-and-clean end of the grid, parallel to sanitary and hygienic in usage.

Latin Lententide, Lent / spring. As a color modifier, lent implies a Lenten-and-fasting-and-purple quality, the visual register of Roman-Catholic-and-Anglican Lenten-period purple-vestment-and-fast-and-ash-Wednesday liturgical surfaces under Lenten-purple ecclesiastical-vestment candlelight. Sits at the modifier-and-time end of the grid, parallel to advent and easter 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.