Flat Nova Teal

Old Norse flatr, flat / level. As a color modifier, flat implies a clear-and-evenly-spread quality where the hue carries the matte-finish visual register of unmodulated single-plane surface. Sits at the crisp-and-balanced end of the grid, parallel to level and even in usage.

Latin nova, new-or-newly-bright-star. As a color modifier, nova implies a sudden-bright-and-newly-erupted-and-flaring quality, the visual register of Tycho-Brahe-and-Kepler-supernova-nova hand-sudden-bright-and-newly-erupted Tycho-Brahe-and-Kepler-and-Cassiopeia-A nova-and-sudden-bright-and-flaring surfaces under Tycho-Brahe-and-Kepler-and-Cassiopeia-A late-Renaissance-observatory-and-naked-eye sudden-stellar-light. Sits at the modifier-and-cosmic end of the grid, parallel to flare and spark 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.