Earnest Kimono Forest

Old English eornost, seriousness, zeal. Used as a color modifier since the nineteenth century for hues that read as committed but unshowy — the working blues of denim, the deep greens of Quaker meetinghouses. Sits in the bold-and-quiet corner of the grid, slightly less luminous than resolute and slightly less institutional than imperial.

Japanese kimono, thing-to-wear. As a color modifier, kimono implies a Japanese-kimono-and-furisode-and-tomesode quality, the visual register of Edo-and-Heian-kimono-and-furisode hand-Japanese-kimono-and-furisode-and-tomesode Edo-and-Heian-kimono-and-furisode-and-Kyoto-Nishijin kimono-and-Japanese-kimono-and-furisode surfaces under Edo-and-Heian-kimono-and-furisode-and-Kyoto-Nishijin Heian-Kyoto-and-Edo-Tokugawa Japanese-court-light. Sits at the modifier-and-textile end of the grid, parallel to haori and sari in usage.

The dense canopy of a temperate or tropical woodland — oak, beech, pine, eucalyptus, mahogany — wherever leaves close above to filter the light below. Forest green refers to the average reflectance of a healthy mid-summer canopy seen from below: a saturated, slightly muted green with the matte finish of layered chlorophyll. Deeper than fern, cooler than olive, with the ecological weight of a word that has named every wooded biome on Earth.