Gallant Fluff Forest

Old French galant, brave / charming — present-participle of galer (to make merry). As a color modifier, gallant implies a saturated-and-chivalrous-and-confident quality, the deep-rich color of Three-Musketeers and Cyrano-de-Bergerac swashbuckling adventure tradition. Sits at the bold-and-chivalrous end of the grid, parallel to valiant and heroic.

Imitative-onomatopoeic origin, attested c. 1790. As a color modifier, fluff implies a soft-puffed-and-airy quality, the visual register of cotton-and-down-and-wool-fluff hand-carded-and-puffed cotton-and-down-and-wool-fluff hand-carded-and-puffed-fluff surfaces under hand-carded-and-puffed cotton-and-down-and-wool-fluff working-light. Sits at the modifier-and-texture end of the grid, parallel to down and fuzz in usage.

The dense canopy of a temperate or tropical woodland — oak, beech, pine, eucalyptus, mahogany — wherever leaves close above to filter the light below. Forest green refers to the average reflectance of a healthy mid-summer canopy seen from below: a saturated, slightly muted green with the matte finish of layered chlorophyll. Deeper than fern, cooler than olive, with the ecological weight of a word that has named every wooded biome on Earth.