Tidy Stalk Teal

Old English tidig, timely — drifted in modern English to mean neat, orderly. Used as a color modifier for hues that read as composed and unfussy. Tidy beige, tidy gray: moderate saturation combined with optical neatness. Sits at the crisp-bucket alongside plain and modest.

Old English stealcung, to-walk-stealthily. As a color modifier, stalk implies a deliberate-and-stealthy-and-tracked quality, the visual register of Highland-stalker-and-stag-stalk hand-deliberate-and-stealthy-and-tracked Highland-stalker-and-stag-and-tracker stalked-and-deliberate-and-stealthy-and-tracked surfaces under Highland-stalker-and-stag-and-tracker heather-moor-and-corrie-and-deer-forest tracked-and-stealthy-light. Sits at the modifier-and-mood end of the grid, parallel to prowl and creep 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.