Sanitary Noon Teal

Latin sānitās, health — adjectival suffix -ary. As a color modifier, sanitary implies a clear-and-clean-and-medical quality, the crisp color of Bauhaus-and-Modern clinical-and-hospital interior-architecture white-tile-and-stainless-steel surfaces. Sits at the crisp-and-clean end of the grid, parallel to hygienic and sterile in usage.

Latin nona-hora, ninth-hour. As a color modifier, noon implies a midday-and-overhead-sun quality, the visual register of Mediterranean-and-Provençal high-noon vertical-shadow-and-strong-light bleached-and-clear-cast surfaces under high-noon overhead light. Sits at the modifier-and-time end of the grid, parallel to day and morn 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.