Polished Fur Teal

Latin polīre, to polish — past-participle of polish. As a color modifier, polished implies a clear-and-smooth-and-glossy quality where the hue carries the visual register of buffed-and-burnished smooth-finish surface. Sits at the crisp-and-finished end of the grid, parallel to burnished and gleaming in usage.

Old French forrer, to-line-with-fur. As a color modifier, fur implies a soft-pelt-and-mammal-coat quality, the visual register of Russian-and-Canadian-fur hand-trapped-and-prepared mink-and-sable-and-fox Russian-and-Canadian-fur-coat-and-trim surfaces under Russian-and-Canadian hand-trapped-fur-coat-and-trim atelier light. Sits at the modifier-and-texture end of the grid, parallel to pelt and fluff 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.