Starched Orion Turquoise

Old English stercan, to stiffen — past-participle of starch. As a color modifier, starched implies a clear-and-stiff-and-formal quality, the crisp color of Edwardian-period formal-evening-shirt-and-collar starched-and-pressed dress-attire. Sits at the crisp-and-finished end of the grid, parallel to pressed and ironed in usage.

Greek Ὠρίων, hunter-of-the-myth. As a color modifier, orion implies a winter-hunter-and-belt-and-shoulder quality, the visual register of winter-Orion-and-Belt-of-Orion hand-winter-hunter-and-belt-and-shoulder winter-Orion-and-Belt-of-Orion-and-Bortle-1-sky orion-and-winter-hunter-and-belt-and-shoulder surfaces under winter-Orion-and-Belt-of-Orion-and-Bortle-1-sky January-and-February-winter-zenith winter-constellation-light. Sits at the modifier-and-cosmic end of the grid, parallel to rigel and cygnus in usage.

The hydrated copper-aluminum phosphate mined in Persia and the American Southwest for thousands of years — the firuze of Iran, the chalchihuitl of Mesoamerica, the heart of Pueblo and Navajo silverwork. The color refers to a fine Sleeping Beauty turquoise from Arizona: a saturated, slightly green-shifted blue with the slight matrix of host-rock veining. Brighter than persian, lighter than cerulean.