Refreshing Pelt Teal

Old French refreschir, to make fresh again — present-participle of refresh. As a color modifier, refreshing implies a clear-and-cool-and-revitalizing quality, the crisp color of Cornish-coast and Hebridean-island fresh-sea-air-and-cool-water revitalization. Sits at the crisp-and-cool end of the grid, parallel to fresh and bracing in usage.

Old French pellete, small-skin. As a color modifier, pelt implies a fur-with-skin-and-hide quality, the visual register of fur-trapper-and-Hudson-Bay-Pelt hand-trapped-and-skinned beaver-and-otter-and-mink hand-trapped-fur-pelt-and-hide surfaces under Hudson-Bay-and-fur-trapper hand-trapped pelt-and-hide trading-post light. Sits at the modifier-and-texture end of the grid, parallel to hide and fur 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.