Solid Hail Royal

Latin solidus, firm, dense — used as a color modifier since the seventeenth century for hues that read as continuous and unbroken: a solid blue is one with no variation across the surface. Implies high saturation combined with optical density. Sits in the bold-bucket alongside strong and robust, slightly more focused on uniformity.

Old English hægl, hail-stones. As a color modifier, hail implies a hail-stone-and-clattering-and-spring-thunderstorm quality, the visual register of prairie-and-summer-thunderhead-hail hand-hail-stone-and-clattering-and-spring-thunderstorm prairie-and-summer-thunderhead-hail-and-Great-Plains hail-and-hail-stone-and-clattering surfaces under prairie-and-summer-thunderhead-hail-and-Great-Plains Tornado-Alley-and-Kansas-Oklahoma-storm-cell prairie-thunderhead-light. Sits at the modifier-and-weather end of the grid, parallel to sleet and flurry in usage.

The blue of European royal court dress and regalia from the late seventeenth century forward — the color of British peers' robes, French royal sashes, the lining of the crown-jewel cases. The color refers to a saturated, slightly violet-shifted blue with the matte finish of velvet or melton wool dyed to maximum intensity: deeper than cornflower, warmer than ultramarine, with the heraldic weight of a color reserved for monarchs and the official Crown.