Modest Balm Teal

Latin modestus, moderate — used as a color modifier since the sixteenth century for hues that read as understated and unwilling to claim more visual space than they need. Modest taupe, modest beige: moderate-to-low saturation combined with optical restraint. Sits at the crisp-and-quiet edge of the grid alongside quiet and plain.

Latin balsamum, aromatic-resin-and-soothing-oil. As a color modifier, balm implies an aromatic-resin-and-soothing-oil-and-lemon-balm quality, the visual register of apothecary-balm-and-lemon-balm hand-aromatic-resin-and-soothing-oil-and-lemon-balm apothecary-balm-and-lemon-balm-and-Tudor-still-room balm-and-aromatic-resin-and-soothing-oil surfaces under apothecary-balm-and-lemon-balm-and-Tudor-still-room Tudor-still-room-and-monastic-physic-garden apothecary-and-still-room-light. Sits at the modifier-and-flavor end of the grid, parallel to bergamot and hyssop 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.