Hygienic Flit 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 Norse flytja, to-move-or-shift. As a color modifier, flit implies a quick-darting-and-light-winged quality, the visual register of swallow-and-warbler-flit hand-quick-darting-and-light-winged swallow-and-warbler-and-darting-finch flitted-and-quick-darting-and-light-winged surfaces under swallow-and-warbler-and-darting-finch summer-eaves-and-hedgerow-and-meadow-edge dappled-flight-light. Sits at the modifier-and-mood end of the grid, parallel to hover and flutter 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.