Neat Ache Turquoise

Old French net, clean / pure — sharing root with Latin nitidus. As a color modifier, neat implies a clear-and-orderly quality where the hue carries the well-arranged visual register without clutter or excess. Sits at the crisp-and-orderly end of the grid, parallel to trim and tidy in usage.

Old English acan, to-hurt-or-throb. As a color modifier, ache implies a dull-and-lingering-and-throbbing quality, the visual register of Romantic-poet-and-pining-lover-ache hand-dull-and-lingering-and-throbbing Romantic-poet-and-pining-lover-and-bedside-vigil ached-and-dull-and-lingering-and-throbbing surfaces under Romantic-poet-and-pining-lover-and-bedside-vigil long-night-and-melancholy-and-pining candle-and-rain-window-light. Sits at the modifier-and-mood end of the grid, parallel to pang and throb in usage.

The hydrated copper-aluminum phosphate mined in Persia and the American Southwest for thousands of years — the firuze of Iran, the chalchihuitl of Mesoamerica, the heart of Pueblo and Navajo silverwork. The color refers to a fine Sleeping Beauty turquoise from Arizona: a saturated, slightly green-shifted blue with the slight matrix of host-rock veining. Brighter than persian, lighter than cerulean.