Sterile Bard Teal

Latin sterilis, barren / not-fertile — sharing root with Greek steiros (barren). As a color modifier, sterile implies a clear-and-medical-clean-and-stripped quality, the crisp color of operating-theater surgical-environment white-and-stainless-steel surfaces. Sits at the crisp-and-clean end of the grid, parallel to sanitary and hygienic in usage.

Welsh bardd, poet. As a color modifier, bard implies a Welsh-and-Irish-poet-and-storyteller quality, the visual register of Welsh-Eisteddfod-and-Irish-Bardic hand-spoken poet-and-harp-and-eisteddfod oral-tradition Celtic-bardic surfaces under Welsh-Eisteddfod-and-Irish-Bardic hand-spoken-poet-and-harp oral-tradition Celtic-bardic gathering light. Sits at the modifier-and-cultural end of the grid, parallel to druid and celtic 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.