Surveyed Mass Teal

Old French surveer, to look upon — past-participle of survey. As a color modifier, surveyed implies a clear-and-measured-and-coordinated quality, the crisp color of Mason-Dixon-Line-and-Royal-Navy-Hydrographic scientific-and-cadastral land-and-sea surveying tradition. Sits at the crisp-and-mapped end of the grid, parallel to mapped and plotted in usage.

Latin missa, Mass-of-the-Eucharist. As a color modifier, mass implies a Eucharistic-and-liturgical-feast quality, the visual register of Roman-Catholic-and-Anglican-Mass Eucharistic-and-liturgical-feast altar-and-vestment-and-incense liturgical-Mass surfaces under Mass-and-Eucharistic-feast altar-candle-and-incense light. Sits at the modifier-and-time end of the grid, parallel to vigil and vesper 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.