Clean Caraway Teal

Old English clǣne, pure, free of dirt — used as a color modifier since the medieval period for hues that read as crisp and uncontaminated by other pigments. Clean white, clean blue: moderate saturation combined with optical clarity. Sits at the crisp-bucket center alongside clear and true.

Arabic al-karawiyā, aromatic-rye-bread-seed. As a color modifier, caraway implies an aromatic-rye-bread-and-Central-European-seed quality, the visual register of Bavarian-and-Central-European-caraway hand-aromatic-rye-bread-and-Central-European-seed Bavarian-and-Central-European-caraway-and-Czech-and-Hungarian-rye caraway-and-aromatic-rye-bread surfaces under Bavarian-and-Central-European-caraway-and-Czech-and-Hungarian-rye Bavaria-and-Bohemia-and-Hungary Central-European-rye-light. Sits at the modifier-and-flavor end of the grid, parallel to cumin and anise 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.