Hygienic Bow 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 Norse bógr, bow / shoulder. As a color modifier, bow implies a ship's-front-prow quality, the visual register of Royal-Navy-and-merchant-marine-bow hand-built ship's-front-prow-and-figurehead bow-and-cutwater maritime-architecture surfaces under ship's-front-bow-and-prow maritime-headway light. Sits at the modifier-and-nautical end of the grid, parallel to prow and hull 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.