Heavy Manor Royal

Old English hefig, weighty — cognate with heave. Used as a color modifier since at least the seventeenth century to indicate weight in saturation as much as value: heavy with pigment, heavy-bodied. In the engine's adjective grid, heavy sits alongside deep and plush in the dark-and-saturated quadrant. Closer to a fabric description than a pure value word.

Latin manōrium, dwelling. As a color modifier, manor implies an English-aristocratic-country-house quality, the visual register of English-Manor-House hand-built timber-and-stone-and-tapestry hereditary-estate-and-tenant-village aristocratic surfaces under English-aristocratic-Manor-House hereditary-estate-and-pastoral country-day light. Sits at the modifier-and-cultural end of the grid, parallel to throne and hall in usage.

The blue of European royal court dress and regalia from the late seventeenth century forward — the color of British peers' robes, French royal sashes, the lining of the crown-jewel cases. The color refers to a saturated, slightly violet-shifted blue with the matte finish of velvet or melton wool dyed to maximum intensity: deeper than cornflower, warmer than ultramarine, with the heraldic weight of a color reserved for monarchs and the official Crown.