Wholesome Drear Lagoon

An adjectival form of whole — used as a color modifier since the sixteenth century for hues that read as healthy and unadulterated. Wholesome cream, wholesome wheat: moderate saturation combined with the optical impression of a natural origin. Sits at the crisp-bucket alongside genuine.

Old English drēor, gore-and-sorrow. As a color modifier, drear implies a bleak-and-cheerless-and-sorrowful quality, the visual register of Brontë-moorland-and-Hardy-heath-drear hand-bleak-and-cheerless-and-sorrowful Brontë-moorland-and-Hardy-heath-and-Wuthering drear-and-bleak-and-cheerless-and-sorrowful surfaces under Brontë-moorland-and-Hardy-heath-and-Wuthering rain-swept-and-low-cloud-and-empty-vista Yorkshire-and-Wessex-light. Sits at the modifier-and-mood end of the grid, parallel to bleak and gloom in usage.

A shallow body of saltwater partially or fully enclosed by a barrier — coral atoll lagoons in the Pacific, Venice's Laguna Veneta, the Florida Keys' backcountry. The color refers to the average reflectance of a calm tropical lagoon at midday: a saturated, slightly muted blue-green with the optical clarity of shallow water over white sand. Brighter than reef, cooler than aquamarine, with the postcard weight of a Pacific atoll seen from above.