Surveyed Slav Teal

Old French surveer, to look upon — past-participle of survey. As a color modifier, surveyed implies a clear-and-measured-and-coordinated quality, the crisp color of Mason-Dixon-Line-and-Royal-Navy-Hydrographic scientific-and-cadastral land-and-sea surveying tradition. Sits at the crisp-and-mapped end of the grid, parallel to mapped and plotted in usage.

Old Slavic Slověninъ, speaker / Slav. As a color modifier, slav implies an Eastern-European quality, the visual register of Slavonic-Russian-Polish-Czech hand-built Onion-domed-cathedral-and-folk-hand-painted Slavic-folk-tradition surfaces under Russian-Orthodox-and-Czech-and-Polish folk-painting cathedral light. Sits at the modifier-and-cultural end of the grid, parallel to roman and celtic 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.