Lavish Copse Cerulean

Old French lavasse, downpour — sharing root with laver (to wash). As a color modifier, lavish implies a saturated-and-extravagant quality where the hue spills over its visual boundaries with luxurious pigmentation. Sits at the bold-and-saturated end of the grid, parallel to opulent and sumptuous in usage.

Old French copeiz, cut wood. As a color modifier, copse implies a small-coppiced-wood quality, the visual register of English-hedgerow-and-pasture-margin small coppiced-hazel-and-hornbeam wood-fragment hand-cut surfaces under small-shaded English-hedgerow filtered light. Sits at the modifier-and-place end of the grid, parallel to wood and grove in usage.

From the Latin caeruleum, originally referring to dark blue paint pigment of the Roman world, then via French céruléen into English. As a modern art-supply name, cerulean blue is the cobalt-tin oxide pigment introduced in 1805. The color refers to a clean, slightly green-shifted blue with the matte finish of mineral pigment in linseed oil: lighter than cobalt, deeper than aqua, with the painter's weight of a word for sky.