Genuine Gnome Teal

Latin genuinus, natural, innate — used as a color modifier since the sixteenth century for hues that read as authentic rather than imitated. Genuine indigo, genuine ochre: moderate-to-high saturation combined with the optical impression of a hue from real pigment rather than synthetic dye. Sits at the crisp-bucket alongside true and honest.

Latin gnomus, earth-elemental-of-Paracelsus. As a color modifier, gnome implies an earth-elemental-and-subterranean-and-mining quality, the visual register of Paracelsian-gnome-and-Alpine-mining-folk hand-earth-elemental-and-subterranean-and-mining Paracelsian-gnome-and-Alpine-mining-folk-and-Renaissance-occult gnome-and-earth-elemental-and-subterranean surfaces under Paracelsian-gnome-and-Alpine-mining-folk-and-Renaissance-occult Alpine-mountain-and-mine-shaft underground-elemental-light. Sits at the modifier-and-myth end of the grid, parallel to sprite and pixie 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.