Hygienic Buffed Teal

Greek hygieinós, healthful — derived from Hygieia (goddess of health). As a color modifier, hygienic implies a clear-and-medical-clean quality, the crisp color of Mid-Century-Modern clinical-and-hospital interior-architecture surfaces. Sits at the crisp-and-clean end of the grid, parallel to sanitary and sterile in usage.

Old French buffer, to-puff. As a color modifier, buffed implies a polished-and-shined quality, the visual register of Sheffield-and-Renaissance-buffed-and-polished hand-buffed-and-polished metal-and-leather-and-wood Sheffield-and-Renaissance-buffed-and-polished surfaces under Sheffield-and-Renaissance hand-buffed-and-polished workshop-light. Sits at the modifier-and-texture end of the grid, parallel to honed and gloss 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.