Lambent Dell Eucalyptus
Lambent Dell Eucalyptus (#21CEA3) is a true teal with a vibrant character. It holds its own as a focal accent, carrying visual weight without tipping into neon territory. Its HSL profile (165°, 72%, 47%) places it in the balanced band at a mid lightness. It works across type, buttons, and borders, saturated enough to feel deliberate but balanced enough to not fight the rest of the palette. For a confident two-color system, pair it with its complementary red. For something softer, pull in its analogous neighbors on either side of the wheel.
Etymology
Latin lambēns, licking-lightly — present-participle of lambere (to lick). As a color modifier, lambent implies a saturated-and-soft-flickering quality, the bright color of candle-flame-and-firefly gentle-flickering light-emission against the surrounding darkness. Sits at the bright-and-soft end of the grid, parallel to glimmering and flickering in usage.
Old English dell, small wooded valley. As a color modifier, dell implies a small-wooded-hollow quality, the visual register of Sussex-and-Kentish-Weald small wooded river-valley shaded-and-mossy hand-walked path-side surfaces in dappled-and-leaf-litter-strewn English woodland-light. Sits at the modifier-and-place end of the grid, parallel to glen and copse in usage.
The genus Eucalyptus, the gum trees that dominate the Australian forest canopy and have been planted across the world for fast-growth timber and the menthol-camphor oil. The color refers to mature eucalyptus leaves with their pale waxy bloom: a soft, slightly muted blue-green with the matte finish of cuticle that reflects more light than typical foliage. Cooler than sage, warmer than mint.
Closest matches
The nearest named color in three reference sources, ranked by perceptual distance (ΔE76 in CIELAB). ΔE < 1 is imperceptible to most viewers; ΔE > 10 is clearly different. When two sources point to the same hex they’re merged into one tile; click any to open that color’s page.
Variations
Click any swatch to exploreHarmonies
Accessibility
How this color appears to viewers with the four major color-vision-deficiency types. Computed via the Machado (2009) physiologically-based model. If a tile matches the original, the color reads the same to that viewer.
The color used as foreground text against pure white and pure black, with the contrast ratio and WCAG 2.1 grade. Aim for AA (4.5:1) for body text and AA Large (3:1) for 18 pt+ headlines; AAA (7:1) is the gold standard for long-form reading surfaces.
Wide gamut
The CSS Color 4 wide-gamut form of this color. Both swatches render the same color on every display — the P3 form only diverges from sRGB when a designer pushes channels outside sRGB's reach.
Moderately saturated colors gain a small bump in P3 — the difference is usually visible side-by-side on wide-gamut hardware but won't change the character of the color.