Honest Saint Lagoon

Latin honestus, honorable — used as a color modifier since the seventeenth century for hues that read as straightforward and unembellished, the working browns and grays of vernacular architecture rather than the polished shades of court fashion. Honest brown, honest gray: moderate saturation combined with optical directness. Sits at the crisp-bucket alongside plain and frank.

Latin sanctus, holy. As a color modifier, saint implies a hagiographic-and-relic quality, the visual register of Greek-Orthodox-and-Roman-Catholic-Saint hand-painted icon-and-relic-and-halo-and-iconostasis hagiographic surfaces under Greek-Orthodox-and-Roman-Catholic hand-painted icon-and-iconostasis hagiographic-tradition candlelight. Sits at the modifier-and-cultural end of the grid, parallel to monk and friar 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.