Fresh Tart Teal

Old English fersc, unsalted / not stale — sharing root with German frisch. As a color modifier, fresh implies a clear-and-newly-applied quality where the hue carries the just-emerged visual register. Sits at the crisp-and-clean end of the grid, parallel to crisp and new in usage.

Old English teart, sharp-or-acid-tasting. As a color modifier, tart implies a sharp-acid-and-fruit-puckered quality, the visual register of Bramley-apple-and-rhubarb-tart hand-sharp-acid-and-fruit-puckered Bramley-apple-and-rhubarb-tart-and-Yorkshire-orchard tart-and-sharp-acid-and-fruit-puckered surfaces under Bramley-apple-and-rhubarb-tart-and-Yorkshire-orchard Yorkshire-orchard-and-Kentish-Garden-of-England puckered-orchard-light. Sits at the modifier-and-flavor end of the grid, parallel to sour and tang 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.