Modest Venus 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 Venus, Roman-goddess-and-second-planet. As a color modifier, venus implies a Roman-goddess-and-second-planet-and-morning-evening-star quality, the visual register of Botticelli-Birth-of-Venus-and-Pompeii-fresco hand-Roman-goddess-and-second-planet-and-morning-evening-star Botticelli-Birth-of-Venus-and-Pompeii-fresco-and-Aphrodite-Hellenic venus-and-Roman-goddess-and-second-planet surfaces under Botticelli-Birth-of-Venus-and-Pompeii-fresco-and-Aphrodite-Hellenic Florentine-and-Pompeian dawn-and-dusk-evening-star-light. Sits at the modifier-and-zodiac end of the grid, parallel to jupiter and saturn 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.