Spirited Comet Jade

An adjectival form of spirit — used as a color modifier since the seventeenth century for hues that read as animate and characterful. Spirited orange, spirited green: the implication is saturation combined with personality, a color that feels like it has agency. Sits at the bright-bucket center alongside lively and vibrant.

Greek κομήτης, long-haired-or-tailed-star. As a color modifier, comet implies an icy-and-tailed-and-streaked quality, the visual register of Halley-and-Hale-Bopp-comet hand-icy-and-tailed-and-streaked Halley-and-Hale-Bopp-and-Encke-comet comet-and-icy-and-tailed-and-streaked surfaces under Halley-and-Hale-Bopp-and-Encke-comet sun-grazing-and-coma-and-ion-tail outer-system-arc-light. Sits at the modifier-and-cosmic end of the grid, parallel to meteor and nebula in usage.

Two minerals share the name: nephrite (a calcium-magnesium silicate, dominant in Chinese jade) and jadeite (a sodium-aluminum silicate, dominant in Burmese imperial jade). Both have been carved in China since at least the Neolithic. The color refers to high-quality apple-green jadeite: a saturated, slightly muted yellow-green with the waxy translucency of polished stone. Cooler than apple, warmer than mint, with the millennial cultural weight of yu, the stone of heaven.